India's Water Future

The success of the government's current initiative hinges on addressing several critical challenges. Effective water resource management requires robust data on both supply and demand sides, particularly considering various climate change scenarios, which is currently absent. The data management system must function as a two-way process: collecting current water demand and availability data at local levels while simultaneously incorporating forecasted basin and sub-basin data under different climate scenarios

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The recent conclusion of the world's largest sustainable development summit - COP 29 - in Baku (November 2024) marked a watershed moment in global water management. The COP 29 Declaration of Water for Climate Action recognizes that water is at the heart of climate change with the majority of climate impacts experienced in the country through floods, droughts, glacial mass loss, landslides, water contamination, sea level rise, water scarcity and changing water availability as well as other substantial changes in the water cycle at global and regional scales.

COP 29 also noted with alarm that 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and about half of the world population is currently subject to severe water scarcity. These challenges require composite efforts, dialogues and actions, at various levels.

Back home in India, in a significant move, the government has proposed a comprehensive draft model Bill (2024) to establish a State Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Authority, similar to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC), being a regulator in the electricity sector. This initiative represents a crucial step toward streamlining water management by consolidating various existing frameworks.

In the draft Bill, the provisions relate to institutional frameworks for state water resource management, water resource management plans, matters relating to groundwater protection zones, floods plane zones and river conservation plans, water tariff, enforcement of a grievance redressal mechanism, power of IWRM Authority and Government's power to issue directions to the Authority. This consolidation will address one of the long-standing challenges in India's water sectors, the multiplicity of regulatory authorities.