The Hindu : Questions over setting up `pani panchayats'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 13, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Questions over setting up `pani panchayats'

By K. Venkateshwarlu

HYDERABAD OCT. 12. Do the much-touted Water Users Associations ("pani panchayats"), which already exist in some States and to be constituted in some more, really democratic and decentralised? Are they becoming sitting ducks for easy takeover by feudals and dominant caste and social groups? More importantly, are they becoming parallel power structures to the constitutionally mandated panchayat raj institutions?

Several such issues of concern came up for discussion at a workshop for mediapersons of South India on "Making water everybody's business'', organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Bangalore, early this week. The workshop was conducted by experts in water management, officials involved in drought-prone area programmes and representatives of NGOs working on rainwater harvesting and watershed programmes.

Participants cited the example of Orissa, where feudal lords took control of water bodies, "hijacking'' the WUAs ("pani panchayats'') and virtually privatising them. In Andhra Pradesh, fears were expressed by the Left parties that formation of WUAs, followed by installation of water meters to measure canal water supplied to the community, were part of the "gameplan'' to introduce pricing of water.

M. Madan Gopal, Executive Director of the Jala Samwardhana Yojana Sangha, a Karnataka Government sponsored community-based tank improvement management project, said it was in anticipation of such problems that representation was being ensured to all caste groups in tank management committees in Karnataka. "Water control needs to be communitised. There is a need to look at tanks as a community-based bankable proposition with a rate of return as high as 17 per cent. It makes sense socially, institutionally, culturally, economically and politically''.

On the WUAs becoming parallel power structures in a village, he disagreed. "Panchayat raj institutions are at best representative and not participatory in character. In fact, there should be a body next to elected village panchayat, which has people from all sections to monitor the work''.

Kapil Mohan, Deputy Commissioner of Dharwad district, however, said that such alternative power structure was sure to create conflicts between the sarpanches and the WUAs. Most of the sarpanches questioned the constitutional authority of the WUAs, as they felt that they were duly elected and held powers that flowed from the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution. His, however, seems to be a lone voice in favour of democratic panchayats.

Otherwise there is near unanimity in the bureaucracy, at least in Southern States, over creation of parallel bodies, saying they are complementary to panchayats and not adversarial. In Andhra Pradesh, besides the WUAs, there are now watershed, school education and the latest poverty eradication committees, all at the village-level functioning outside the ambit of the panchayat system. With so many committees where is the space for the elected panchayats? Have they not been consciously made redundant?

"Droughts come frequently, despite spending Rs. 70,000 crores on irrigation dams and thousands of crores of rupees on drought prone area programme and relief measures. We have failed to recognise the rudimentary community-based water harvesting and water arithmetic that 100 mm of rain captured on a hectare of land gives one million litres of water and that out of 8,760 hours in a year, most of the rain in the country fall in just 100 hours'', said Sumita Dasgupta, Coordinator, Natural Resources Management Unit, CSE.

"The rest of the period, the only solution lies in capturing, storing, recharging and then using the rainwater over the long dry periods'', she said.

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