The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Water belongs to people, says French expert

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Water belongs to people, says French expert

By G. Mahadevan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM. Oct. 13. The water resources of a land belong to its people and their right to have equitable access to such resources is inalienable, according to Jean Luc Sabatier, expert in social water management from the Centre for International Research and Development (CIRAD) in Montpellier, France.

Dr. Sabatier was talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of an international conference on Inter-University Post-graduate Education in Social Water Management that began here today. The four-day conference, for developing a curriculum for a post-graduate programme in social water management, is being organised by the Mahatma Gandhi University.

All these years, the scientists in developing countries who were planning water management programmes were not fully aware of the real needs of the people to whom they were giving water. Their emphasis was on large, centralised water supply schemes. The scientists were so busy building new dams that they had no time to operate and maintain properly the projects they implemented earlier, points out Dr. Sabatier, who has been involved with social water management projects in various developing countries, including Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Bhutan and Nepal for the past 15 years.

Water management

Today, with governments having no money to sustain major water management schemes, the need of the hour is the introduce water scientists to traditional water management methods and to encourage them to interact more with the people who will be the end-users of their projects.

"All water scientists today are oriented towards water management in the cities. But it is in the rural areas where huge quantities of water are used for irrigation purposes that the social dimensions of water management assume real significance. So far, the State has not bothered to understand the traditional wisdom that people had in the matter of water management. In the future, when there is going to be great pressure on water resources, the State needs to have a new relationship with the people in the matter of water management," he said.

This marriage between modern science and traditional wisdom is what the proposed course in social water management will seek to achieve, explained Dr. Sabatier. In order to realise the aim of re-orienting policy-makers to the actual water management requirements of the people, 30 per cent of those admitted to this international post-graduate programme will be Government employees and representatives of NGOs. The trainees will work on actual water management projects being implemented in Sri Lanka and India.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala

News Update

Stories in this Section

Water shortage acute in M.G. Road area

Water belongs to people, says French expert

DGP told to take action against SI for duty lapse

Youth held on charge of cheating

Five killed in accidents

`Peoplespeak'

Hoteliers' pat for Mayor

RJD leader dead

Around the City

IN Thiruvananthapuram Today

Documenting the nation's heritage