The Hindu : Water Ministry pays lip service to people's participation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 18, 2002

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National

Water Ministry pays lip service to people's participation

By Gargi Parsai

New Delhi Oct. 17. The Ministry of Water Resources' consultation with NGOs and experts on an action plan on the National Water Policy here today turned out to be a mere lip service. Of the 60-odd select NGOs invited, only about 20 turned up. They too were outnumbered by a 100-strong contingent of former bureaucrats, engineers, commissioners and directors from various government departments and the Central Water Commission, turning the workshop into a Government meet.

By the end of the third session, only three or four voices could be heard from the voluntary sector. Others had left in disgust saying, ``this is like one of the World Bank meets where they want endorsement of their action plan without any seriousness in getting suggestions of the NGOs or people''. The action plan, which purports a ``major shift'' to active community participation in water resources, once adopted, will be a model plan for States to follow and adopt. However, till the end of the day one, there was no clarity on a mechanism for involvement of people as there were differences on whether people should come in at the formulation of a project or after its implementation.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan leader, Medha Patkar, who has led a strong movement of people displaced by mega water projects through three States for more than a decade, was not invited to any of the consultations held by the Ministry in Pune, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Lucknow, Jaipur and the last one now, in Delhi.

When asked about this, a Ministry official said only NGOs based in Delhi were invited. This, however, is not entirely true. At the Delhi meet, there was a H. Kumar from Alwar, Satish Girija from Jharkhand, R.D. Verma from Jaipur, B.R. Chauhan from Shimla to name a few.

Retired professors and representatives of All-India ex-Soldiers League, V.B. Services and Coast Guard found favour with the Ministry, but the likes of L.C. Jain, Vandana Shiva, Commander S.D. Sinha, Shekhar Singh, Devinder Sharma, Vimalji (all from Delhi) were ignored.

Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People said this was a futile exercise because the National Water Policy had already been passed with no participation of people.

Shumita Das Gupta of the Centre of Science and Environment said, ``This is a useless exercise as the policy has already been adopted. They should've involved people much earlier. The participation of NGOs at this workshop is pathetic. It is a meeting of some engineers, former government officials looking for consultancy or who already are consultants. The basic concept is at fault here.''

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