The Hindu: Mumbai: Saturday, April 13, 2013.
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| Koyna Dam in Satara district, Maharashtra |
Water starved areas across Maharashtra were
deprived of irrigation thanks to decisions of the government’s high powered
committee (HPC) which diverted 1983.4 million cubic metres (mcm) from 41 dams to industry and
domestic use between 2003 to 2011 affecting 3.23 lakh hectares.
According to a report by Pune based NGO Prayas
which will be published shortly, the committee headed by then irrigation
minister Ajit Pawar for the most part, ignored protests and high court orders
to steamroll decisions. Other agencies too approved reservations for
non-irrigation use of 1385.29 mcm affecting 94,116.9 hectares. Totally this meant that 4.18 lakh hectares were bereft of
irrigation. The Water Policy of Maharashtra for 2003 gave industry precedence
over agriculture and the HPC constituted in 2003, only decided on proposals
for diverting more than 25 per cent of the storage capacity of the dam to non-irrigation uses. Of the
56 proposals for diversion to non-irrigation use, the HPC approved water
diversions from 41 dams.
Analysing information obtained through the Right
to Information (RTI) act, the Prayas report says that in 23 projects, 30 to 90 per cent of water is diverted for non-irrigation use, in three dams it is
between 75 to 90 per cent, for instance Hetavane dam in Raigad has 88 per cent of its water
diverted to the special economic zone (SEZ) and other uses, and in Pavna and
Aamba dams 81 per cent was reserved for non-irrigation use.
Dams in Thane district like Surya meant for
irrigation for tribals has 53 per cent diverted for industries or drinking water and in the Darna
Gangapur complex of dams in Nashik, 74 per cent is diverted for
non-irrigation purposes. The highest reservations for non-irrigation use was in
the Darna-Gangapur complex of dams in Nashik with 32.9 per cent, Khadakvasla dam in
Pune 17.5 per cent, Upper Wardha project in Amravati with 6.5 per cent and even Gosikhurd
with five per cent.
North Maharashtra has the highest allocation for
non-irrigation use with 35 per cent, followed by Western Maharashtra and Vidarbha with 26 per cent each, Konkan 13 per cent and Marathwada two per cent. In Northern and western Maharashtra
municipal corporations and councils benefit most, apart from industry and
Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) areas. In western
Maharashtra, water has been diverted for special economic zones (SEZ) s and
thermal power projects and in Vidarbha too it is mainly for power plants and
drinking water in cities.
The HPC in its 21 meetings which were analysed
gave speedy approval without following any norms, the report said. The bulk of
the allocations, 46 per cent were reserved for industries and 54 per cent for drinking water
and domestic use, belying the popular notion that industries got very little
water from dams. The largest chunk of water for domestic use —16.94 per cent went for drinking water to big and small cities and gram
panchayats. Mumbai, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Nagpur were the beneficiaries
while only 1.75 per cent went to gram panchyats. Of the industrial allocations, thermal
power plants received the largest amount of water — a whopping 64 per cent, MIDC 19 per cent and SEZ 14 per cent.
Forty-seven companies benefited from water
allocations and of this 12 companies or one-fourth of them got 90 per cent. Of the 15 thermal power plants which benefitted, 13 were private power companies
including Sofia Power Company (India Bulls) Amravati, India Bulls Mega Power
plant, Adani, Lanco, apart from two National Thermal Power Company plants in
Nagpur and Solapur. Of the industries, three private companies-- Reliance got
eight per cent, India Bulls -17 per cent and Adani 7.
7 per cent of the water allocations. Prayas notes
that HPC gave the highest benefits to private companies and clearly the dam
waters instead of going to farmers went to industries or cities.
Nothing in the meetings of the HPC reflects any
concern for the areas deprived of irrigation or how some alternatives can be
worked out. Only in Nashik was there a condition that water used for domestic
purposes can be treated and sent back to the farmers but that was nullified as
the water was given to India Bulls.
The water diversions were made for 21 to 31 years in most of the cases and the HPC did not heed any provision of the
Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority(MWRRA) act or have any
procedures laid down to observe governance. Its decisions were not in keeping
with laws of the land and neither did they have a legal framework. It also
ignored the fact that there were three court cases against the diversion of
water and instead of paying heed to all this, the government chose to endorse
the HPC’s decisions by an ordinance in 2010 which was widely assailed.
In 2005 government had passed the MWRRA act which the HPC seems to have ignored,
and in 2009 people challenged the HPC decisions. The government retaliated with an
ordinance in 2010 to amend MWRRA to endorse the HPC decisions. The ordinance had provisions
whereby the HPC orders could not be challenged in any court. The ordinance was
replaced by a bill with the same draconian provisions which was passed hastily
in the legislative assembly during the night on April 14, 2011 creating a furore.
The Prayas report also throws light on the poor
attendance of the HPC meetings and the abysmal quality of decision making.
Other than the water resource minister, the committee comprises the ministers
for finance, water supply and sanitation, industry, agriculture and the water
resources minister of state. Data analysed from 20 meetings shows that the
agriculture minister was present only in 7 meetings and the industry
minister had the lowest attendance, being present only in five. Other ministers
were not there in 50 per cent of the meetings and only the water resources minister was present
in four meetings. It would not be wrong to say that decisions were driven at
the behest of a certain set of ministers, the report concluded.
From a farmer centric state, Maharashtra seems to
have moved to encouraging an industry politician nexus, a Prayas member noted.
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