National Water Policy 2012
It's main emphasis is to treat water as ECONOMIC GOOD which the ministry claims to promote its conservation and efficient use.
Features of National Water Policy:
- To ensure access to a minimum quantity of potable water for essential health and hygiene to all citizens, available within easy reach of the household.
- To curtail subsidy to agricultural electricity users.
- To keep aside a portion of the river flow to meet the ecological needs and to ensure that the low and high flow releases correspond in time closely to the natural flow regime.
- To give statutory powers to Water Users Associations to maintain the distribution system.
- Project benefited families to bear part of the cost of resettlement & rehabilitation of project affected families.
- To remove the large disparity between stipulations for water supply in urban areas and in rural areas.
- To support a National Water Framework Law.
Major Provisions Under this policy are:
- Envisages to establish a standardized national information system with a network of data banks and data bases.
- Resource planning and recycling for providing maximum availability.
- To give importance to the impact of projects on human settlements and environment.
- Guidelines for the safety of storage dams and other water-related structures.
- Regulate exploitation of groundwater.
- Setting water allocation priorities in the following order: Drinking water, Irrigation, Hydropower, Navigation, Industrial and other uses.
- The water rates for surface water and ground water should be rationalized with due regard to the interests of small and marginal farmers.