Alternative national water policy - A critique - Economic and Political Weekly

This article published in the discussion section of the Economic and Political Weekly is a critique of the National Water Policy: An alternative draft for consideration, proposed by Ramaswamy Iyer, published in the Economic and Political Weekly, June 25th 2011.

The author argues that the alternative draft cannot be called as a policy because:

• It is not designed to meet any quantified targets in the light of what is known as the science of hydrology.
• The draft policy does not take cognisance of statistics, targets, strategy and plans of action. It thus does not seem to be designed to achieve any particular water related objectives
• It is based on many dos and donts decided a priori and handed out in the manner of axioms, to be taken without question
• Several of the recommendations in the policy are not in agreement with the science of hydrology
• Many of the recommendations seem to be based on ideology, rather than objectives

The article argues that the draft policy suggested by the author of this document is more of an ideological approach that depends on predetermined ideas or actions that are acceptable or unacceptable.This approach makes no prior commitment to achieving any particular targets.

The article comments on the advantages of the management approach as compared to the ideological approach and argues that the management approach is much more flexible as compared to the ideological approach because the targets can be modified to strike a balance between what is desired and what is acceptable.

The management approach decides beforehand the targets that need to be achieved and tries to formulate a policy to achieve those targets, to the extent feasible. This approach makes no prior commitment to include or exclude any particular actions.

The article argues that the contribution of the civil society in formulating a National Water Policy is extremely important. However, experience has indicated that the contribution of the civil society in the formulation of the water policy though important has been more of an ideological one in the past. 

The article warns that it is important to understand that a policy is a statement of the path to be taken to reach a specified set of targets, the stated path has to be feasible, and demonstrably so. The targets should determine the policy, and not the other way round.

A copy of the article can be downloaded from below: