"Big transformations": Authors of book on India's water governance journey hail reforms spurred by PM Modi

Daniel Smith noted the lessons from Gujarat and their application at a global level. In an interview with ANI, Smith noted that the biggest takeaway from a global perspective is to get the priority towards water.

A new study launched at IIM Bangalore traces lessons from a 25-year water governance journey that began under the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, in 2001 in a water-scarce state. The study highlights the Narmada-based water grid with institutions such as WASMO, while noting the reflection at a national level. The study titled 'From Gujarat to India: Water Lessons for the World' is authored by Daniel W Smith, Assistant Professor at George Mason University; Nitin Bassi, fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW); and Parameswaran Iyer, former secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India. The study was published by George Mason University and the Gates Foundation.

Daniel Smith noted the lessons from Gujarat and their application at a global level. In an interview with ANI, Smith noted that the biggest takeaway from a global perspective is to get the priority towards water. He said while the hydrology and requirements of every country are different, the fundamental ingredients can be borrowed from India as it has applied the water governance model at a large scale.

Smith said, “The biggest thing to take away looking at it from a global perspective is to get the priority for water where it should be at the very highest level and then build the public financing and the administrative architecture to carry through on the implementation. So, those are necessary ingredients anywhere: the Global South, but really any country. And I think what's particularly interesting about the case in India is that it's happening at a scale that's almost unimaginably large. It's talking about over 400 million people, even just in rural areas, who obtain safely managed drinking water over this period.” “Just the idea of making big goals, building the funding and architecture to obtain them is fundamental. And I think that other countries, of course, have their own administrative systems, capacities, cultures, and hydrology. So keeping the necessary ingredients in mind is important while having some breadth for all the local and specific things that every country will bring,” he added.

Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Parameswaran Iyer noted that the PM had sowed the seeds of water governance in Gujarat, which was perennially starved of water climatically. Iyer noted, “Water… is an important topic from a development perspective as well, from an economic perspective, from a social perspective. There have been big transformations in water governance in India over the last decade under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So, we took a step back and said, ‘Let's trace the roots of it.’ Then we saw that in 2001, when he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he initiated some remarkable reforms in water governance and management in a very water-scarce state.”

“Whether you look at river management through Narmada, whether you look at micro irrigation, the creation of an institution called the GGRC, institutionally WASMO for drinking water and sanitation. A lot of governance reforms were focused, to a large extent, on community management, empowering users, but also using technology. Then when you go forward to 2014, many of those programs which we have articulated in the study became national programs, Jal Jeevan Mission, Namami Gange, the Jalshakti Abhiyan, micro irrigation,” he added. Sharing anecdotes from his work with PM Modi, Parameswaran Iyer highlighted his call for a decentralised community-based approach for water governance. He also recalled that the name for the Jal Shakti Ministry was coined by PM Modi.

Iyer told ANI, “I still remember when we started discussing the Jal Jeevan Mission, the Prime Minister was very clear then because the big discussion was that there's a lot of variability in states. Some states have low coverage; some have high coverage. And how do we come up with a national program that addresses the different concerns and different situations? And he was very clear that he said, ‘We've got to follow what we did in a decentralised model.’ He said that the design has to be in such a way that in the end, the community takes charge and the local panchayat has to take charge.” “The creation of the Jal Shakti Ministry. Absolutely fascinating. Water, even in the government, was fragmented in different ministries. And so when you talk of integrated water management, it's important even institutionally to have a single place where you can deal with irrigation, drinking water, rivers together. And so one big step was merging two ministries to form the Ministry of Jal Shakti. And that name again came from the Prime Minister,” he added.

When asked about reforms amid the Narmada Bachao Andolan, Nitin Bassi said that the Narmada Grid created a framework for water supply across the state, which had suffered droughts in the 1980s and 1990s. He said, “What is unique about the Gujarat model is that we are saying it finally led to the reforms in the Pan-India context. And then we are also offering lessons to the world. One thing we should remember is that there was a severe drought. There was another set of droughts that struck straight in the mid-90s. There was a drought period between 2000 and 2002. Now, during all those years, though attempts were made to ensure that water security could reach people, it never happened.”

Bassi said that there were attempts to supply water through trains; however, the grid helped in solving the supply issue. He said, “In 2000, 2001, there are stories, and there is evidence that we found that trains were going to Saurashtra for supplying water. In 2001, when the current Honourable Prime Minister was the CM in Gujarat, Mr. Modi, he had a vision of how we could do something for the entire state. So one of the visions and the initiative he had in mind was about this water grid (that) reach across the state. So, water started reaching all the way to North Gujarat, where people are now taking high-value crops. The same water was used to recharge groundwater. The same water was used to rejuvenate a lot of the local rivers. The same water was used to supply drinking water, for livestock, and for supplemental irrigation in certain cases. Now, all these could happen because of the big push and the big dreams and the vision that CM Modi had at that time.”

Gujarat had resorted to a Narmada-based water grid with institutions such as WASMO and village-level Pani Samitis, alongside large-scale water conservation and groundwater recharge. According to IIM Bangalore, by 2013, the state had constructed more than 76,000 check dams under the Sardar Patel water conservation programme. (ANI)