National Water Policy in India

India’s water policy is at a crossroads. A confluence of unsustainable groundwater use, urbanization, pollution, agricultural demand, and erratic monsoons threaten to overwhelm the country’s water resources. The National Water Policy (NWP) serves as an over-arching guideline for water-resources planning. India’s National Water Policy 2012 is the legal policy that guides water-resources planning in India even as the proposed revisions await formal adoption.

Evolution of National Water Policy

India’s National water policies have evolved over time based on the government’s changing administrative priorities:

• 1987 (First NWP): Engineering oriented – emphasized drinking water as a priority and sought to expand irrigation for national food security.
• 2002 (First revision): Allocation of resources to private participation, operation and maintenance, and initial river ecosystem requirements.
• 2012 (Second revision): Transition from the engineering to the integrated water resources management approach, demand management, ecological sustainability, and climate change adaptation.
• 2019 – 2020 (Mihir Shah draft): Jal Shakti Ministry constituted a committee chaired by economist Dr. Mihir Shah to comprehensively revise the National Water Policy. The committee submitted its final draft on November 7, 2020.

Current Status of National Water Policy

As per official announcements and the Department of Water Resources annual reports, the National Water Policy 2012 is the operative policy, and the Mihir Shah committee’s draft awaits center-state consultations for formal adoption.

Key Aspects of National Water Policy 2012

• Shift towards Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM): NWP 2012 proposes moving from the compartmentalized approach of drinking water, irrigation, and industrial water to a basin-wide inventory of water resources. Drinking water, irrigation, and industrial water need to be allocated at the river basin-sub basin level.
• Water as a scarce economic good: The NWP 2012 sought to transition from viewing water as a right to a scarce economic good. The government would need to evaluate the opportunity cost of using water for agriculture, industry, and drinking water after meeting the basic needs of drinking water, sanitation, subsistence farming, and ecology.
• Standardized hydrological information: To improve transparency and governance, the policy proposed a standardized digital water database that can collate information on rainfall, reservoirs, and groundwater levels to aid states in their planning.
• Demand-side management: NWP 2012 proposed doing away with the engineering approach to expanding water resources (creation of new dams) to focus on demand reduction. Large industries would be forced to undertake water audits, and micro-irrigation, and rainwater harvesting would be promoted in urban centers.
• Ecological requirements (E-flows): The policy sought to incorporate the concept of E-flows in river management to ensure that river ecosystems were not entirely ignored. Maintaining minimum E-flows would help protect freshwater biodiversity and provide sufficient freshwater flows to downstream estuaries.
• Adaptation to climate change: Water resource planners need to factor in the impacts of climate change by developing new infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather conditions like flooding and prolonged drought.
• Inter-state water commissions: NWP 2012 encouraged riparian states to move from disputing water shares to long-term permanent basin institutions that could negotiate water allocations based on shared water data.

Why the National Water Policy 2012 Failed?

Even though the National Water Policy 2012 proposed some progressive ideas, the implementation has been slow due to the following reasons:

• Constitutional and federal issues: Water is primarily in the State List (Entry 17, VII Schedule, Indian Constitution), and the Union Government has limited jurisdiction over inter-state rivers (Entry 56, Union List). While the Union government can guide the states, the responsibility of implementing the provisions rests with the states and union territories.
• Institutional and personnel bottleneck: State Irrigation departments face a shortage of personnel with multidisciplinary expertise. The staff has a disproportionately higher number of civil engineers compared to hydro-geologists, ecologists and social scientists.
• Groundwater depletion: In many states electricity subsidies or lack of meters encourage groundwater use for agricultural production. Groundwater provides 64% of India’s net irrigated cropland and 85% of rural drinking water. Hence farm electricity policies override water policy to a large extent.
• Inter-sectoral water use conflicts: Industrial corridors and mega cities encroaching on to rural areas create competition for water between industries and farmers.
• Degradation of river basins: Deforestation of catchments, sand mining, and urban waste dumping have led to river basin degradation that offsets state-level river conservation efforts.

Draft National Water Policy – Mihir Shah Committee

The shortcomings of the National Water Policy 2012 were acknowledged by the Ministry which constitutes the Mihir Shah Committee (November 2019) to formulate a new National Water Policy. After extensive consultations with stakeholders, farmers, and hydrologists, the committee submitted its draft on November 7, 2020. The Mihir Shah draft proposes doing away with the concrete and extraction-led approach to India’s water crisis and transition to multidisciplinary river basin governance.

Key Aspects of the Draft

• Water use for agriculture: Farming accounts for 80-85% of India’s freshwater use. The draft proposes aligning agricultural practices with natural water availability. It recommends incentivizing farmers to adopt drought-resilient crops like millets, oilseeds, and pulses and reducing water-intensive crops like paddy and sugarcanes.
• Water reuse and recycling (3-R): The draft proposes a 3-R (reduce, reuse recycle) strategy for municipal and industrial water use. After treating municipal sewage, the water can be reused for industries for cooling and processing purposes. Potable water should be used for drinking and cooking purposes only.
• Nature-based water management: Instead of building concrete embankments, the draft encourages natural water management approaches like restoring catchments, planting trees along river banks, and recharging aquifers to help store and retain floodwater.
• River protection and E-flows: Rivers need to be protected from large-scale human interventions like barrage construction, and water extraction. The draft proposes statutory protection of first-level flood plains and the enforcement of E-flows to ensure downstream fish stocking, and sediment and nutrient flows.
• Unified Water Commission: The draft proposes merging the Central Water Commission (CWC – concerned with surface water dams) and the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB – groundwater) to constitute the National Water Commission. The new commission would have a multidisciplinary mandate to address surface and groundwater issues.
• Water Quality: The draft recognizes the need to address water quality concerns. Institutional mechanisms need to be evolved to monitor emerging contaminants like microplastics, PFAS, and heavy metals in drinking water.

Changes Since the Draft

While the detailed National Water Policy draft awaits cabinet approval, significant progress has been made in developing the National Water Data Policy (NWDP). Recognizing the critical need for improving data governance, the government launched the NWDP 2026 to develop an innovative Open Digital Water Infrastructure. This infrastructure would enable easier data sharing between agencies while providing end-users with the information they need for decision-making.

The NWDP 2026 Five Pillars

Key Issues That a Revised Water Policy Must Address

• Community water budgeting: Community water budgeting of aquifers is essential to prevent the ‘race to the bottom’ in groundwater use.
• Subsidies for water-intensive agriculture: Power and price subsidies for water-intensive crops like paddy and sugarcane in rainfed areas need to be rationalized.
• Restoration of riparian forests: Restoration of riparian forests and enforcement of dynamic E-flows can help in rejuvenating river health.
• Circular economy for urban hydrology: Closing the urban water cycle through dual pipe systems and septage treatment plants can help prevent urban flooding.
• Neutral dispute-resolution mechanism: Neutral data-driven dispute-resolution mechanisms can help expedite inter-state water disputes.
• Climate-resilient infrastructure: Retrofitting old reservoirs and urban drainage systems can help manage intense rainfall and long dry spells.

Way Forward

• Link agricultural support to water budgets: Public procurement and subsidized crop insurance can incentivize farmers to adopt water budgeting and transition to low-water footprints and micro-irrigation.
• Operationalize river basin organizations: Statutory river basin organizations (Irrigation departments) must be formed at the state level, with multi-disciplinary staff to prepare river basin water budgets.
• Leverage science and village panchayats: Linking digital water budgeting (NAQUIM) with village panchayat water budgeting can provide Gram Panchayats with groundwater budgets.
• Scale up NWDP 2026 infrastructure: State Water Resources departments must contribute to the federated water data hubs so that planners have the necessary dashboards.
• Mandate wastewater reuse: Power plants, industrial estates, and construction sites within 50 km of a city must buy treated effluent from STPs.
• Rebalance center-state water federalism: India’s water policy must allow for consensus building among states rather than relying on the Union Government to drive water reforms.

Conclusion

India’s water policy needs to transition from an engineering-dominated supply-driven approach to demand-responsive management and conservation. Large dams and boreholes cannot offset the impact of depleted aquifers and the loss of natural catchments. While the National Water Policy 2012 serves as the operative policy, the proposed changes and innovative ideas in the Mihir Shah draft and the National Water Data Policy 2026 can transform India’s water governance to be more participatory, ecological, circular, and data-driven.

FAQs on National Water Policy

When was the first National Water Policy introduced in India?

India’s National Water Policy 1987 provided the country with its first water policy to guide national planning. The policy was extensively revised in 2002 and 2012.

Which National Water Policy is currently in effect?

The National Water Policy 2012 is the operative policy even as the Mihir Shah Committee’s draft awaits center-state consultations for formal adoption.

Who chaired the committee for revising NWP 2012?

The committee constituted by the Jal Shakti Ministry in November 2019 was chaired by renowned economist Dr. Mihir Shah.

When was the draft revised National Water Policy submitted?

The Mihir Shah Committee finalized its extensive stakeholder consultations and submitted the draft to the Jal Shakti Ministry on November 7, 2020.

What is the main focus of the proposed revised water policy?

The proposed draft shifts the focus from large dams and groundwater to crop diversification, demand management, ecological flows, decentralized wastewater recycling, and unified water governance.

What is the National Water Data Policy 2026?

The National Water Data Policy 2026 is an innovative data governance initiative that promotes an open digital water infrastructure. It aims to democratize water data by removing data silos and enabling better decision-making; it complements the National Water Policy 2012.

Why is crop diversification important for water management?

Agriculture is the largest water user in India; hence, it is essential to encourage farmers to grow water-intensive crops like paddy and sugarcane and shift to less water-demanding crops like millets, coarse grains, and oilseeds.

Why is groundwater important in India’s water policy?

Groundwater provides India with 64% of net irrigated cropland and 85% of rural drinking water; hence, it is vital to evolve sustainable groundwater management practices.