Improvement in Policies of Ministry of Water Resources to Stop gross Mismanagement of Water

The policies of the Ministry of Water Resources in India need complete review and improvements to manage water resource. The dams are being constructed at more than 75 percentage dependability to justify the huge cost, leaving little water or no water in the river downstream. The incorrect identification criteria for dispersive soils adopted by the CSMRS and CWC is helping & shielding the erring dam construction authorities, who have not followed the standard specifications and procedures for dam construction. Similarly the CWC and CSMRS are helping & shielding the erring canal construction authorities who have not followed the standard specifications and procedures for canal construction by adopting the incorrect identification criteria for expansive soils.

The canal projects are being planned, designed, constructed and maintained only upto the outlet for the chak (outlet area). The farmers, which are not expert technically and do not have money, are assigned the duty of constructing field channels (water courses) in the chak area (outlet area) which may vary from few hundred acres to two thousand acres. This is not practically possible and in most of the cases the field channels does not get constructed to cover the full outlet area and thus the canal water does not reach in the full Culturable commanded area. Also the field channels constructed by farmers are not constructed properly causing loss of head and wastage of water. Therefore the Govt. of India in MoWR must include for all the old and new projects, construction of field channels in the farmer's fields at Government cost and must include the cost of construction of field channels, in the cost of the project.

Instead of making improvement in policies and to hide its deficiencies, the policy makers in MoWR gave a new slogan of Command Area Development Authority (CADA) for the overall development of the command area. But CADA could not provide water to the farmers at the tail ends of the canals. CADA also caused huge financial burden to the government and increased number of officials in every concerned department, without real time benefit to the poor and backward class farmers. CADA increased the water allowance of the canals and caused inefficient wasteful use of water by the farmers. CADA could not prevent 30 to 50 percent of water released in the canals back to the main river in dry season November to June.

The work done by the CADA could have very well done by the normal government administration, without such a huge expenditure and wasteful use of resources, had the MoWR improved its inaccurate and wrong policies for planning, design, construction and maintenance of the irrigation projects. CADA is a failure now.

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Taxonomy

• Policy
• Water Scarcity
• Water Resource Management