9.1 Lack of Appreciation for Linkages of Resource
Availability and Utilization
Since water spans over a large domain of economy and natural resources management sector, the data collection and reporting generally pertains to the prime
interest on the part of the agency engaged in the activity. A case in point is the
urban water supply. Whereas the municipal and other local bodies agencies are
quite concerned about the receipt of adequate water at all points of time, the
information about the outflows returning back to the river is not of that level of
concern. There are a number of parameters like quality and composition of the
effluents which are quite important from a water manager’s view as the same water
has to be provided for another usage downstream. Similar is the case for other large
industrial consumers like power generation utilities or mining and steel producing
utilities.
Due to lack of manpower and lack of attention being bestowed on the minor
irrigation projects, the information of individual minor irrigation project about its
water utilization at regular intervals of time is normally not available or is available
in a lump sum manner. However, with advent of a large number of minor irrigation
projects in a catchment, the overall usage becomes comparable to that of a major
project, but the data on consumptive usages as measured in case of a major project
is not replicated for the individual minor project. In many cases, this has led to
difficulties while negotiating about the water usages between states and also making
real-time projections about availability and consequent planning for downstream
areas in the basin.
9.2 Competitive Nature of Water Management at Interstate
Level
Appreciation of the need for the collective responsibility and collaborative approach
in an overall basin concept in view of increasing demands has been lacking
amongst the stakeholders at various levels extending all the way to the states. The
individual entities are more interested in ensuring a fixed quantum of the resource
as an exclusive right or entitlement. Historically, the usages which were within the
overall availability with some surplus have provided a sense of entitlement, but with
the increasing demands, the surpluses have vanished, and shortages especially
temporal nature of shortages have gone up. The agriculture being the largest user
has a great role to play in this regard. The effects have been multi-fold. The first one
being premium on the other hand, the random nature and increasing demands of a
fixed quantity in line with the development aspirations make the same extremely
difficult to manage such a regime. In this scenario, the individual entities are quite
responsive about the requirements and actual resource availability but are not
amenable to share the information about the actual consumption achieved. This
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A. B. Pandya
Availability and Utilization
Since water spans over a large domain of economy and natural resources management sector, the data collection and reporting generally pertains to the prime
interest on the part of the agency engaged in the activity. A case in point is the
urban water supply. Whereas the municipal and other local bodies agencies are
quite concerned about the receipt of adequate water at all points of time, the
information about the outflows returning back to the river is not of that level of
concern. There are a number of parameters like quality and composition of the
effluents which are quite important from a water manager’s view as the same water
has to be provided for another usage downstream. Similar is the case for other large
industrial consumers like power generation utilities or mining and steel producing
utilities.
Due to lack of manpower and lack of attention being bestowed on the minor
irrigation projects, the information of individual minor irrigation project about its
water utilization at regular intervals of time is normally not available or is available
in a lump sum manner. However, with advent of a large number of minor irrigation
projects in a catchment, the overall usage becomes comparable to that of a major
project, but the data on consumptive usages as measured in case of a major project
is not replicated for the individual minor project. In many cases, this has led to
difficulties while negotiating about the water usages between states and also making
real-time projections about availability and consequent planning for downstream
areas in the basin.
9.2 Competitive Nature of Water Management at Interstate
Level
Appreciation of the need for the collective responsibility and collaborative approach
in an overall basin concept in view of increasing demands has been lacking
amongst the stakeholders at various levels extending all the way to the states. The
individual entities are more interested in ensuring a fixed quantum of the resource
as an exclusive right or entitlement. Historically, the usages which were within the
overall availability with some surplus have provided a sense of entitlement, but with
the increasing demands, the surpluses have vanished, and shortages especially
temporal nature of shortages have gone up. The agriculture being the largest user
has a great role to play in this regard. The effects have been multi-fold. The first one
being premium on the other hand, the random nature and increasing demands of a
fixed quantity in line with the development aspirations make the same extremely
difficult to manage such a regime. In this scenario, the individual entities are quite
responsive about the requirements and actual resource availability but are not
amenable to share the information about the actual consumption achieved. This
158
A. B. Pandya