An Act to commodify water

Meghalaya's draft water Act omits conservation and management from the sustainability point of view

Meghalaya has joined the august band of states that have legislated on water resources. Its draft water Act has a lot on “management”, but nothing on protection or conservation even though the Act purports to be about water and not just its management. The notable difference is that the state's Act does not differentiate between ground, surface or rain water while nearly a dozen other states have Acts specifically to manage groundwater.

Meghalaya has jumped the gun somewhat in that the draft Act precedes the national water policy, pending before the National Water Resources Council for action. It ignores several  important things that have informed recent water debates in India—climate change’s impact on water, pollution, reuse of water, water for life versus water for livelihood, conjunctive use of water and the peculiar problem of the state of scarcity amidst plenty. What the Act does have in excess measure is management of water by concessionaires (water managers who can be anybody or any entity) and a modicum of community involvement.

Paves way for private ownership of water

The natural resources of the state are controlled, as is land, by individuals. The Act reflects this and reiterates their right to manage water and transfer it to another manager through lease or concession. It elaborates on how this can be done and fixes rights and responsibilities. It makes no mention, alarmingly, of how the manager will manage the resource sensibly. Instead, it focuses on the revenue and distribution aspects. This lays the ground of private ownership (as against individual, government or community ownership) of water in Meghalaya. Worse, the manager can “give the river beds and water lands (sic) to other entities to carry out economic activities. It’s not clear what the current owner gets apart from the rent and how this will affect access to water. This part of the Act appears to be amateurishly drafted with no understanding of current water management or the limitations of the resource.