Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Tough days ahead for water policy

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Officials of the Water Resources Department will be meeting here on September 20 to draw up proposals for implementation of the Water Policy announced in July.

The policy formulation itself took nearly half the term of the present government. Now, its implementation is going to be a harder and longer task. It is doubtful whether implementation strategies and action plans can be drawn up and carried out in the next two-and-a-half years.

The Department has been claiming for years that piped water supply had reached majority of people in the State. Now, it has accepted that this is not the case. Accordingly, the policy stresses that open wells and other drinking water sources should be protected from bacteriological and chemical contamination. This will be an uphill task as many such water sources in the State are polluted.

The policy claims that the ‘polluter pays’ principle has been enforced in the case of industrial discharges for minimising contamination of surface and groundwater resources. However, even public sector units have not been paying at least a fraction of the cost needed to mitigate the pollution caused by them. All that the Travancore Titanium Products, for instance, have paid for to compensate for the enormous polluting of the beach and the sea is nominal sums for rehabilitation of some fishermen families.

The Plantation Corporation of Kerala has never been held accountable for polluting drinking water sources in Kasaragod with endosulfan. The policy now states that the principle is to be extended to other sectors too. However, the government is not yet clear as to how it would go about enforce it.

The policy admits failure in achieving irrigation protection and efficiency in the use of water. Investments in the irrigation sector have yielded only marginal returns. Projects like the Kallada irrigation scheme have gone haywire. Technical and financial incompetence and corruption were evident.

The policy proposes omnibus legislation in different spheres of water management. New enactments are proposed covering water rights, groundwater exploitation, water harvesting, use of irrigation water for drinking purposes, water pricing and subsidy norms.

However, the government has been tardy in enacting new laws. Many published Bills are waiting to be considered by the Assembly.

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