Sharing the Blue Resource:Critique on India’s Recent Stratagem

Water the ‘Blue Treasure’ is made available by the natural hydraulic cycle of the atmospheric-oceanic terrestrial system. Today across the world, rivers, lakes, and aquifers are dwindling faster because of human action. The current paper examines the global and national water crisis and makes an attempt to critically analyse the Indian Government’s Draft National Water Policy 2012 which proposes to keep livelihood and ecosystem needs as the first priority, but contradicts this by insisting that water must be seen as an ‘economic good’ Section I of the paper discusses the extent of global water crisis and the rising tide of the water market. On a societal scale, water scarcity raises potential conflicts between the fulfilment of the ‘need’ and ‘right’ to water for personal & domestic use, and industrial use. In this context, section II briefly reviews the future demand for water and also describes the context in which the traditional view of treating water as a ‘need’ or ‘social good’ got replaced as ‘economic good’ and finally as a ‘human right’ in 2010. Access to water is now a human right and it is the state’s obligation to provide this vital resource to everyone. Countries who have been signatories to the UN resolution are now required to design appropriate governance structures to ensure that ‘Right to Water’ is upheld. It is in this context; section III of the paper succinctly presents how right to water is an implied right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution for safe guarding the rights of its citizens to water. The section further sketches the current water crisis scenario in India and makes an attempt to scrutinise the Draft National Water Policy 2012 and identifies several discrepancies which highlight that government favours privatisation and commodification of water delivery services. Based on the analysis it offers a few recommendations for consideration to enable the government to prepare a plan of action in line with the commitments made at UN so that the right to water can become a reality like all other fundamental rights enshrined in Indian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights