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| Keynote Address |
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Text of the speech (keynote address) of the Union Minister for Water Resources, Mr. Salman Khurshid
 Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It is an honour to be here again at the PHD Chamber of Commerce and this time at a meeting on such an important aspect of our civilizational existence and indeed for our current as well as succeeding generations. Observer Research Foundation’s association adds the cutting edge to the gathering here to which all of you are present on a Monday morning. Normally they speak of the Monday morning blues but you have come here for the Blue Revolution on a Monday morning. So, I think the colour blue itself can be given interesting dimensions.
President Salil Bhandari has given a broad overview of what you are going to be looking at the afternoon and of course we have the good fortune to have Mr AK Bajaj here as well, Mr Vikram Sood, Sushmita Sekharji and all the distinguished friends. I have been in this ministry now for a few weeks and I must say that it has been a remarkable learning experience. Water is not something that any of us are unfamiliar with. It is a part of our lives, one way or another. Those of us who are scientists know about water in a different way, those of us who are consumers of water, those of us who are spiritual people, those of us who are involved with industry, agriculture, each one knows about a particular dimension of water in a very significant way because it is a part of our lives. That is where the trouble also begins. What is part of our lives has also become part of our lifestyle and our lifestyle is what is creating the trouble for ourselves as we all know but also for our environment, ecology and our surroundings. Therefore now at least some of us are aware but not concerned; some of us are concerned and some of us are indeed involved in doing something about this concern and that is that we are today sitting on a volcano. We are actually sitting on the beginning of a major crisis for ourselves and for our succeeding generations, something that we have taken for granted that it is inexhaustible, that it is something that cleans and cleanses itself, something that can be there and has always been there for millennia, we are now beginning to understand that it is actually possibly running out and that we are increasing our demand and need for it at a much greater speed than there will be availability of water in times to come.
Sources of water have obviously all been discovered, researched and largely accessed. The problem in our country as highlighted by the President is that there is availability of water at a particular time of the year but there is no way that we can capture that water, save that water and secure that water for use for the rest of the year because we have no storage capacity. There is some storage capacity in the neighbourhood, particularly Nepal, but there are a lot of socio-political issues that need to be resolved before that storage capacity can be utilized to its maximum extent and that will possibly take time. We are putting it on a high priority, we would certainly want it to be a matter of urgency but it will not just be dependent upon what we desire and what we do but also the kind of reciprocation that is possible and compatible across the border.
We have certain proposals from within India where again countries like Nepal, Bhutan will have a role ultimately but to some extent the assumption is that we would be able to tackle some of the problem, management problem as far as water is concerned and availability of water is concerned through the river basins linking in the country, something that the Supreme Court has taken interest in, and something which has been talked about now for over 30-40 years. But again that has some difficulties and the difficulties are not those of engineering, the difficulties are also not so much of finance, but the difficulties ultimately are about our attitudes. How do we see water, how do we see ourselves in relationship with water, and how do we see the future. Unless we work this out, we will not find a solution to this problem.
 We do know that countries like Australia were able to take a major leap forward at the time of extreme crisis. We have done this in our own country. Economic reform in this country took place at a rapid pace without the usual argumentative debates that Amartya Sen talks about as being part of the Indian landscape, because there was a serious crisis in this country and if we had not stepped in with economic reforms at that time we probably would not have had economic reforms for another 20 years. But the first tranche of economic reforms was possible only because we were under a crisis and as the crisis moved away and the dark and threatening clouds of crisis parted we went back to business as usual and again started to argue about ideological issues and pros and cons and the second and third phases of the economic reform that should have followed got stalled, certainly slowed down and we are still in the process of trying to work out our national attitudes about what is acceptable, what is ideal and what is something that we should work towards consensus for. So the attitudinal changes that have to come have to be in terms of how we want to see our country governed, relationship between the Centre and States, the conventional views that we have of the federal structure or quasi-federal structure of our country, the relationship between centre and States on management of water. Rivers run through many states, the basin goes through many states and therefore we need to look at what is potentially available within the existing constitutional arrangements and there is to some extent powers available provided Parliament will exercise those powers and there may be need for some other changes that have to be made in the constitution to allow for the kind of integrated management of river basins that is called for today in this country. So, that is a huge attitudinal change and you can’t have a river basin transfer of water unless this essential attitude and this conceptual arrangement are agreed upon by the entire country.
Then again, a micro picture of the macro picture is what to do with the aquifers. The rivers at least you can see even the common man can see rivers but the aquifers can only be seen as it were or felt or known by experts who study water hydrology and who study aquifers. Mapping of aquifers is something overdue and we are now in the process of mapping aquifers but that is also just all known aquifers. We have no idea of what kind of water is available in what are very deep aquifers, as has been suggested about Rajasthan. There are millions of years old water available in deep aquifers but should that be kept for times to come for a major crisis several generations down the line or should we begin to tap deep aquifers as well is another question that we have to decide in conjunction with scientific studies.
The third important thing is about how we have treated water bodies in this country. I will take an example. Not necessarily something that we need to blame anybody for, we are very quick in blaming each other in this country and of course it is good to know that there is one standard universal blame game today in the country which is if you cant blame anybody else just blame the politician, which is a good thing because the good thing about politicians is that they keep changing, they are not permanent so that blame keeps shifting from one lot to another lot unlike many other fields in which there isn’t change, at least not till a whole generation passes.
 That is about water bodies. People tell me there are over 200 water bodies in the Greater Mumbai area. I know from each one of us and I experienced travelling in rural areas there were people who talk about traditional water bodies that existed which have now been encroached upon either for agricultural purposes or for residential habitations, perhaps somewhere even for industrial use. The Supreme Court has very categorically said that there will be no land use permitting people to change from water bodies to any other purpose but we have already lost a lot of water bodies. Is there any possibility of reclaiming those water bodies and I give you an example. The Ministry and the UP government are working closely towards this. There used to be a huge lake next to Fatehpur Sikri. Today it is just ordinary agricultural land. I think it is interesting research as to at what stage did that lake die up and at what stage the land started getting transferred to the present owners if in fact it was transferred to the present owners at all. But in order to get that land back we will need negotiations, we will need compensation, we will need possibly legislation, and we will need the use of existing legislation and government cooperation between the State and the Centre. But if we revive that we would be reviving an important source for water in that area. We should also be reviving an important part of the heritage of our country and possibly creating livelihoods both in terms of tourism, in terms of fisheries, in terms of various other things that people associated with water bodies are able to provide and this is something that we feel is doable. But this has to be replicated many thousands of times all over the country to see where we can actually get back the water bodies that we have lost. Excellent works are being done in the Mathura area, in the areas of bawlis and old tanks and old lakes that existed and almost 39 of them I believe have been restored after considerable participation between government and corporate sector and of course the local people and civil society. Today in that area I believe not only 39 have been revived but people are demanding for more. Now what do these bodies do other than add to the aesthetics of our life? They become as it were the breeding points for ecology because this is the water that will sink down and ensure that the water tables are consolidated and the water table is secured. That is a very important part of what we need to do in terms of attitudinal changes.
But the water that is below the surface, whose water is it anyway is the big question. People assume traditionally that that water belongs to the person who owns the land under which that water is. People coming from Punjab would know that this is the worst kind of attitude that one can have that you can just keep pulling out water both for yourself and for your neighbours, not caring as to what that is doing to the water table. This involves a re-look at the pricing of water, the biggest political question in this country, pricing of water. It is because the water is not adequately priced and properly and rationally priced that it is being wasted. If it had a value automatic rationalisation of use of water would take place. Now, proposals have come about how we can split the feeders so that the electricity that goes to residential areas and to agricultural areas are separate, the power that is fed to a pump is given for a limited time and the price has to be a rational price. Of course this means the entire agricultural economy has to be looked at again and you know how difficult this is. We postpone it from year to year because each year you have to just solve the crisis of that particular year either by giving prices high return on the produce of the farmer, not necessarily caring about what it would do to the rationalisation or irrational use of water.
Then there are some national instincts and the conventional wisdom that we have to re-look at, the lining of canals for instance. Your immediate reaction is lining of canal is a good thing, it saves water. Of course it saves water but what it also does is it deprives the water table of access to the water that seeps down from the canal. Now, where should you allow the water to seep into the ground and where should you line the canal to prevent the water, another thing that has to combine both sociology and engineering. So, what we want to do now in the ministry and the Water Mission has already been cleared by the Cabinet, part of the climate change action plan but we will by next year, and we are working and your contribution would be of enormous value to us that we are working towards a new water policy and the new water policy must answer all these questions. Not just answer all these questions but make water management into a central issue of governance in our country. There are many issues that are important in our country and improvement of governing standards in this country ? transparency of decision making, rationality, accountability, autonomy of institutions that scrutinize and make people accountable but an essential part of governance has to be how we manage water resources in this country. Therefore, we look forward to your contributions to the Water Policy that will come out next year. The water policy must ensure that we at least begin a dialogue towards changing attitudinally how we are going to govern this country taking water as one important major factor. Two, it must make water management into a people’s issue. It has been too much of an issue of experts, of engineers, of concerned enlightened people and also to some extent few hard working NGOs and civil society members who have got themselves involved. I know there are groups that are committed to making Delhi self sufficient in water in 10 years time. They actually said five, I gave them grace of another five years that they would be able to turn Delhi into a city that would store enough of the runoff of the rains to ensure that it will need to seek water from the rivers. This is a very significant change that could happen in a city like Delhi. These are very ambitious plans but these are plans that we have no choice but to implement. If this is understood by the country and I hope that there will be one day an election in this country where our positions on water management and water resource management will decide who gets into government and who stays out of government. I hope this happens in the near future and I hope it happens without one of us having to sit on a hunger strike. But this is important. It needs to happen in this country because we have today the knowledge that water is 2/3rd of our life, our body is 2/3rd water but it is actually something that can snuff out life in our country and the world. This all talk about Third World War being fought over water etc., is perhaps a little bit of an exaggeration but certain we will be gasping for life if we don’t manage our water well.
I think there is today a path that can skirt the crisis and overcome the crisis and we can move towards that path. I hope that the new water policy in the beginning of next year will show us the direction in which we have to go and with good people like you participating I hope the younger generation coming in and water becoming a central point both of our study and our concern we will overcome. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
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