As public interest in rejuvenating the river Ganga is bolstered by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election promises, now is a good time to ask what underpins river basin management on this complex network of waterways.
First and foremost, water problems in India (and other parts of the world, alas) are seen as quantifiable issues that can be resolved with simple arithmetic (subtract water there; add water here), rather than as wicked problems of public policy. Just think of the way the National Inter-Linking of Rivers Project is being touted. The problem it aims to address is one of distribution, but rather than focussing on more cohesive management of existing water resources along with demand-side strategies, the project will simply convey large amounts of water from one part of the country to another.
The prevailing paradigm implies that engineering, technology and science can solve all the water problems in India - and therefore the dominant debates are about how and when specific uses of engineering, technology and science should be applied, rather than the more fundamental questions of governance. What water uses should be prioritised on which parts of which rivers and under what circumstances? When should irrigation benefits be prioritised over industrial or environmental interests? How can rivers that flow between states be managed fairly within a legal framework that gives rights over water to the state government?
Of course, the lure of elegant, scientific solutions is understandable. It is the promise of modernity; an age when, in Nehru's words, dams were the temples of modern India. Usurpingly, many in the political elite today are of a generation raised to aspire to becoming engineers.But the temptation of technology is also perpetuated by external factors.
Take, for example, the India-Australia Water Science and Technology Partnership signed in 2012. As the name suggests, the initiative focuses on technology and science as means to improving river governance in India. The cornerstone of the Australian assistance to India in this matter is the application river basin modelling technology from the Murray-Darling basin to the Ganga.
This is a sophisticated, cutting-edge product and an extremely valuable tool in the context of the Murray-Darling basin where the infrastructure exists to measure precisely the amount of water that comes in and out of every property in the basin. The modelling technology allows for evidence-based decision making in the regulation of a complex water market and the allocation of environmental flows according to climatic conditions.
In the Indian context, however, water pricing is still a taboo subject and environmental considerations sit toward the bottom of a very long list of problems in managing the Ganga. Is Australia's river basin modelling technology likely to do much good for the Ganga at this stage of development of a governance framework? ﾬCertainly, using technology to measure how much water comes in and out of various parts of the river basin at specific points in time is useful. Accurate data is important for evidence-based decision making, as can be seen in the case of the Murray-Darling basin. But the 'decision making' part of the equation is the fundamental one.
Without institutional capacity and legal frameworks and political will already in place to manage rivers cohesively, the hydrological data is meaningless. If, however, the technology could become a catalyst for states discussing water issues and cooperating on river governance, then it is worthwhile because policy considerations take precedence over gathering data solely for the reason that technology exists to collect it.
The danger of seeing river basin modelling technology as the key to improved water governance is that it assumes solutions will become self-evident if only enough pieces of information could be collected. But river governance is not a two-dimensional puzzle; it is a wicked problem with no right or wrong answers. Moreover, improving one aspect of the problem (for example, addressing pollution through regulation of tanneries or mining operations) can exacerbate another (such as the livelihoods of those - often the poorest of the poor - who work in those industries).
There is no easy answer to the question of how best to balance all the competing water use priorities of the Ganga. But one thing is clear: as long as rivers are seen merely as pipes for conveying water, and challenges of distribution are addressed primarily through engineering rather than policy, then no solution will be appropriate.
(The writer is a Visiting Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi. He can be contacted at [email protected] )
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