Chetan Pandit

"Arrest of a multi-millionaire deputy director Neeraj Kumar Khatri has apparently blown the lid of what could possibly be a scam involving clearances in the environment ministry. The CBI on Thursday found Rs. 1 crore in cash from Khatri’s homes in Gurgaon and Rohtak, a day after he was arrested on charges of accepting a bribe of Rs.

This article published in the discussion section of the Economic and Political Weekly is a critique of the National Water Policy: An alternative draft for consideration, proposed by Ramaswamy Iyer, published in the Economic and Political Weekly, June 25th 2011.

Today is 22 February, 10 days afterwards, and there is not a single reply to it.

National Water Academy (NWA) is a training institution of the Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India. NWA conducts training programs that cover all aspects of water resources development and management at basin scale, viz. hydrology, hydrometry and telemetry; flood management; investigation, planning and formulation of river valley projects; environmental and social aspects of river valley projects; design of dams /barrages /canals /gates/ hydro-power structures and FEM; dam safety and instrumentation; GIS and Remote Sensing; Hydro-informatics; IWRM; Water Policy; etc.

Guest post by Mr. Chetan Pandit who works for the Central Water Commission, Government of India

This blog is a condensed version of the paper published in the 3rd Round Table on Sustainable Consumption and Production, organized by the Ministry of Environment and Forests jointly with UNEP, at New Delhi on 11-12 Feb 2010. The views expressed in this article are author’s personal views, and are not to be taken as the views of his employers.

In any discussion about Sustainable Development (SD) the quantity of consumption is invariably the main concern. Perhaps this stems from the original definition of SD as the “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", which invokes the spectre of insufficient quantities of resources at some time in the future. This concern is invalid for water, because water is a dynamic and renewable resource. Every hydrologic year brings a fresh packet of water. There is no way to use in this year, the rainfall that is yet to occur in the next year, or next decade. Moreover, any unused water will flow away to the oceans. The storages capacities, whether in surface storages or in aquifer, are adequate for one year only, at the most a little carry over for the next year. With many basins already reaching “water stressed” status, the problem at hand is how to supply the needs of this year, and there is no question of storing the water for future generations. Thus, in the context of water, quantity of water used should not be the primary concern for SD.

Parineeta Dandekar's earlier post on environmental flows, triggered several responses and we have initiated a discussion forum