Book Review : Water in the open economy

Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns

by Ramaswamy R. Iyer

SAGE Publications, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London.

Review by U. Karunatilake 

The scope of Prof. Ramaswamy R. Iyer's book is wide, comprehensive and up-to-date, coming from a reputed authority at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

It covers the constitutional and legal role of India's federal structure, policy making and planning and usage of water the most vital resource for life the issues and problems of large dams, the cross border security related to flow of water through more than one country, their separate requirements of water inter-country water conflicts and resolution by treaty planning for the future development and utilisation of water resources.

These issues are directly and lucidly covered without long-winded approaches and conjectures. The hypocrisy of the economic growth plea in the profit oriented global exploitation of vital resources, is exposed.

The constitutional aspects of water resources in a federal structure bearing on inter-state water disputes, the limitations of statutory provisions, the solutions adopted and their inadequacy are discussed in relation to the Cauvery River basin.

This problem began as a dispute between the upstream State of Karnataka and the downstream state of Tamil Nadu, but has brought in two other States, Kerala upstream and Pondicherry downstream, with smaller demands on the Cauvery waters.

The other shows how the legal, technical and administrative steps taken by the central and state governments in solving the problem have been complicated by electoral politics which exploit historical, religious, cultural and emotional responses which are illogical and intractable. This should be a warning to us in Lanka where emotional responses to sharing of resources and opportunities also tend to get politicised even without a federal constitution.

Prof. Iyer cautions that water sharing has to be subordinate to national water policy which every country that claims to be democratic has to state in terms of equity and social justice. In outlining national water policy water is treated as a scarce and precious natural resource related to catchment, basin and groundwater sources with special regard to the human and environmental aspects, giving first priority to drinking water and next to land use.

Water policy covers flood prone and drought affected areas, project planning for multiple benefits, rainfall data and projections on river flow.

We in Lanka have to take notice of lack of consistent policy and neglect of data in the large dam projects where colossal public expenditure has gone into the Mahaweli system with massive multipurpose dams and reservoirs but no water as project for irrigation or power and no flood protection when most required.

The author has indicated the danger of electoral politics in negating legislative and administrative processes, but we have seen in Lanka how river authority legislation, and technocratic planning and decision-making first upheld a thirty year river basin development schedule which got stampeded into an "accelerated" five-year project, with negative returns on power and irrigation.

A similar situation on a smaller scale has prevailed in the Lunugamvehera project and the Upper Kotmale Project where technocrats belonging to respected professional institutions have been seen to go back on their original recommendations and decisions.

Prof. Ramaswamy Iyar will no doubt be amused that the recanting of technical and scientific decisions takes place with the connivance of foreign lending institutions and foreign contractors. He has himself observed that "what we call development is greed and with the triumph of the market forces ideology, the march of globalisation, and the tide of consumerism all over the world, greed seems to have come to stay".

We hope not, because all human culture rejects greed, conflict, and self-illusion as the root of evil though they are the corner stones of capitalist ideology. We see that two millennia if capitalism have failed and the planned use of resources for social and economic equity must take over.

Summing up Prof. Iyer continues, "At the moment it is difficult to see how a change of direction is going to be brought about and doom averted.

The advocacy of such a course is likely to be dismissed as naive and romantic............... we shall have to be content with the concept of sustained development which implies postponement rather than elimination of doom............... if in fact Water is a scarce resource that is becoming scarcer because of increasing population and if a crisis is looming on the horizon should not that consciousness of scarcity and impending crisis guide our planning?"

From this perspective and with his personal resources of technical know-how, worldwide project experience and consultancy to various international bodies including the World Bank and the World Commission on Dams, Prof. Iyer provides the guidelines for the future, writing very readably on a large spectrum of Indian experience like national water policy, river basin planning, groundwater legislation, large dam projects, the World Commission on Dams and the Indian reality, water and security in South Asia and shortcomings in thinking on water resource development, and augmentation and linking of rivers, pointing out flaws in concept and implementation.