The Hindu Business Line : A water war brews in Satara

Control of water resources by the government means their control by a few leaders who can continue in power. There is a temptation for these leaders to leverage water management projects electorally. Citing instances of diversion of water from one region to another in Maharashtra, Sharad Joshi thinks the stage is set for a water battle in the parched fields of Satara.

MANY PEOPLE, including some ardent liberals, hold that even in totally liberalised economy water management should be under the control of the state. Rivers do not respect political boundaries and flow through nations and states. This, inevitably, results in water disputes between and among nations, states, towns and even villages.

Development of river valleys as an integral project presupposes a great deal of coordination, which can be ensured only by the state. Further, the size of investments required is beyond the capacity of most private bodies, which anyway may not be forthcoming to invest in projects that do not yield profits in foreseeable future.

But experience shows that the role of the state has been far from productive and beneficial. Control of water resources in the hands of the government boils down to control in the hands of a few leaders who can continue in power only by obtaining and renewing their electoral mandate.

Human cupidity being what it is, there is an inevitable temptation for these leaders to handle the water management projects in a manner that would help them in specific regions and electoral constituencies. The penchant for making quick money results in defective planning and execution of projects as also inadequate utilisation of the irrigation potential created.

A pertinent illustration comes from the Deccan plateau of Maharashtra.

The State is served poorly as regards irrigation facilities. Barely 24 per cent of its agricultural land is irrigated. The rainfall is heavy in Konkan, eastern Maharashtra and parts of Marathwada.

These regions are often ravaged by floods. Most of the other districts of the State fall in medium rainfall category and are subject to periodical droughts and famines.

Farmers in these areas are unable to set aside, in years of bountiful crops, anything for times of scarcity because of the deficit character of Indian agriculture.

Come famine or drought, they are forced to seek employment in relief works or migrate to cities for livelihood.

The areas on the Deccan plateau, particularly those adjoining the Sahyadri range, come under the latter's rain shadow and are almost perennially drought-stricken. Only in an occasional year, the peaks of Sahyadri let some water-bearing clouds pass.

Those are the years when these areas get a few showers. In some years, the South-West monsoons bring a few showers if they are strong enough to cross Andhra Pradesh.

Certain taluks of Satara district, such as Khandala and Maan, are perennially drought-affected where even drinking water is so scarce that men and women migrate in their hordes across the Sahyadri to Panchgani, Mahabaleshwar and other places where rainfall is abundant and rivers run full.

A rational scheme of water management would include construction of dams for storage of water to be dispatched through canals into the parched taluks of Satara district. In fact, this was the stated objective for projects such as Dhom-Balkavadi and Neera-Deoghar. A lot of work was done on the Neera river even in the British days that resulted in a large storage facility at Veer.

The construction work and the management of the projects have been such that the drought-affected areas of Satara district continue to live in parched misery while the water allotted to them on paper is being hijacked for the benefit of regions that provide political support to leaders with clout.

How does this highland water robbery managed? The Sahyadri ghats provide a very fragile catchment area. The heavy downpour washes down huge quantities of mud and slush.

Any wise project management would start with a programme of large-scale afforestation of the hillsides in order to minimise soil erosion and silting of the dams.

But leaders show scant interest in the management of catchment areas though they are enthusiastic about the construction of dams, which is, for obvious reasons, politician-, contractor- and bureaucracy-friendly.The location of a dam is also a subject to political manipulation. The more influential leaders want their protégé villages to be saved from submergence.

The location of a dam can also change the floor level of the reservoir.

It is seen that sites that have natural advantage and would involve lower construction costs, are given up in favour of higher sites in order to ensure that the water can reach favoured territories.

Politicians invariably prefer to plan the canals in such a way that their constituencies get the maximum advantage of irrigation and that the lands there benefit from perennial irrigation year after year.

A wiser practice would be to plan two or three alternative garland of canals without letting the canal water into field through sub-canals or drains.

This system would improve the percolation of water and raise the groundwater level.

The field irrigation can take place through lifts on wells with the result that utilisation of water is economic and conducive to the maintenance of soil-health.

The present system of a single canal converting politically favoured areas into perennially irrigated tract does confers political advantage but is quite often disastrous for the environment, soil-health and the water economy.

Salinisation is making large tracts of land barren in the district of Sangli where influential leaders have taken the water intended for the parched lands of Satara district.

The Dhom-Balakavadi dam was designed, at least partly, for the benefit of Sangli district. All work there is complete, canals have beeen excavated and water is already reaching Sangli.

On the contrary, while the Neera-Deoghar dam is ready, the work on the canals that would take water to Khandala taluk has not even started.

As some kind of a consolation, Khandala has been offered three very expensive lift irrigation schemes that would benefit only carefully selected areas.

Perhaps Sangli was well placed to snatch away water from adjoining Satara district, because it has produced many stalwart politicians with great influence in Mumbai and Delhi.

Now leaders from other regions, such as Baramati and Latur, are finding out ways of taking that water to their constituencies.

Khandala, on the other hand, has not been as lucky. Also Khandala taluk has been truncated and parts of it tagged on to Faltan and Wai constituencies in the same district.

The representatives of Khandala in the Assembly are yet to show that they can protect the water rights of their people too.

The poor peasantry is up in arms and the first battle over sharing of waters may start in the parched field of Satara — the land that produced such great farmer revolutionaries as Nana Patil during the Quit India movement.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana, and can be contacted at sharad@mah.nic.in)

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