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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Mihir Shah Committee report: How to solve water crisis

Mihir Shah Committee report: How to solve water crisis

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published Published on Jul 1, 2017   modified Modified on Jul 1, 2017
-India Water Portal

As a solution to the water crisis, Mihir Shah Committee recommends constituting National Water Commission--a multidisciplinary organisation that will look into water management more holistically.

The country’s water sector is going through a rough patch. From polluted water resources to increasing demand for water due to rising population and frequent droughts, there are many problems that plague the sector. The worst sufferers are farmers and this is evident from increasing farmer suicides. To overcome the challenges of the water sector and for water security, a paradigm shift is needed in water management. This is possible only by moving from the supply-centric approach to a people-centric one.

At present, water is being managed under two separate heads--surface water and groundwater. Surface water is managed by the Central Water Commission or CWC and the groundwater is managed by the Central Groundwater Board or CGWB. From a hydrological standpoint, however, the two disciplines are not separate from each other and are interconnected. Therefore, a major shift is needed in the institutional framework of the CWC and the CGWB to make water management more holistic and multidisciplinary. In this context, Mihir Shah Committee, a seven-member committee headed by Dr Mihir Shah, has proposed in its report on India’s water reforms in 2016 to restructure the CWC and the CGWB into a National Water Commission that aims to bring both the CWC and the CWGB in its ambit and also fill the various gaps left unaddressed by the two agencies.

Role of the Central Water Commission

The Central Water Commission was formed in 1945 as Central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission. The water wing, however, got separated in the year 1974 and the CWC became an individual entity which continues till date. At present, the CWC functions as the main technical arm of the Ministry of Water Resources and handles matters pertaining to irrigation, flood control and multipurpose projects. The overall planning, development and management of surface water resources of the country come within the CWC’s scope of work.

Inadequacies of the commission

The responsibilities and activities of the commission are restricted to surface water resources resulting in a total disregard of other components of water resources in the hydrological cycle, especially the groundwater. Due to the interconnectedness of water with other sectors, there is a need for coordination among different agencies. For example, the river water quality monitoring function overlaps and to some extent duplicates the work of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the hydro-meteorological data collection overlaps the function of India Meteorological Department or IMD while the hydrological studies lie within the mandate of the National Institute of Hydrology or NIH, Roorkee.  

Moreover, the CWC does not have an expertise on issues concerning the environment and the socio-economic aspects of water. Apart from this, it also lacks knowledge of efficient irrigation management and water utilisation. Other than its functions in the river morphology and irrigation projects, another important responsibility of the CWC is to impart training to in-service engineers from the central and the state organisations in various aspects of water resource development. But the CWC looks inadequate in this area at present as it only caters to the engineering side of water projects while ignoring the holistic aspect of water management.

To sum up, the current functions of the CWC address only a fraction of water management issues. Several major components of the hydrological cycle and its processes remain untouched. Also, the current focus of the commission is entirely upon the supply-side management which involves the storage and diversion of river flows as it is exclusively staffed with engineers. It lacks the knowledge of any other discipline that interfaces with water resource management.

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India Water Portal, 29 June, 2017, http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/mihir-shah-committee-report-how-solve-water-crisis


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