Mumbai: The latest Niti Aayog report has presented a grim picture of Maharashtra’s water management efforts with the State dropping lower in overall rankings. Released last week, the Composite Water Management Index, has flagged worrying trends reflecting not only poor planning at the ground level but also policy omissions resulting in low irrigation potential, poor restoration of water bodies, average access to drinking water and treatment of waste, the report said.
The poor performance in most of the nine themes explored resulted in Maharashtra shedding a rank this time. From fourth place in 2015-16, the State is ranked fifth in FY17, behind Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat at first place. The report is likely to be a setback to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ plans to present Maharashtra as a leader in water management with the flagship Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan promising to make the State drought-free by 2019. The Abhiyan was launched in 2016 with an aim to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity every year.
Among the nine themes states were measured on, Maharashtra’s score was the worst on the index of irrigation management. The State scored below the median score of 7.57 drawn up for 21 states that reported data for FY17. The report noted that the significant variation in scores was owing to “poor performance” of large states such as Maharashtra. “In fact, Maharashtra has the highest number of large dams in the country (2,354), but only 18% of the State is irrigated, indicating a wide gap between irrigation potential created (IPC) and irrigation potential actually utilised (IPU),” the report said. The report cited poor performance, the IPC-IPU gap and inadequate maintenance as the most pressing challenges in the irrigation sector in the country. Much of these were driven by a lack of capacity in state departments and inadequate collection of user fees to ensure maintenance of irrigation assets.
The access to water (urban) and treatment of liquid waste were the other two areas where Maharashtra’s performance left much to be desired. The overall median score on this index was reported to be 4.77 with states divided equally around the five-point mark. The gaps, the report said, were a result of the states with the largest urban areas — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala — providing drinking water to only 53-72% of their massive urban populations. Maharashtra fell lower on the index of rural drinking water, with its score dropping to near the median score of 4.57 in FY17 from near the 8-point mark in the base year.
Over the theme of policy and governance for effective water resources management, Maharashtra ranked 12th among 17 states that were ranked. Overall, 18 states have scored above 7.5 (out of 15) with a cluster of high performers between 10-12 points and median performers located around 7.5 points.
The report noted that improvement in this indicator is critical to fund maintenance and treatment costs for utilities and to reduce wastage in water-scarce urban areas. The theme included four main indicators covering a broad range of water management practices, including legislation for the protection and restoration of water bodies, a framework for water harvesting in buildings, the pricing of urban water, and the existence and regular validation of integrated data for water in the State. The other indicator where the State was found to be trotting was canal and distribution network lengths; States with large irrigation assets, such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been found to be lagging in this area. The report said Maharashtra has ground to cover in providing segregated agricultural power feeders, maintenance of irrigation assets, adoption of micro irrigation and treatment of urban waste water.
The State government, while agreeing to the dip in scores, has admitted it is trying its level best to improve on all counts. Water Resources Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Girish Mahajan said the State has achieved more than the irrigation potential ever reported in the previous regimes and has passed as many as five new policies to augment management of water bodies. “We agree there is a gap between our irrigation potential created and irrigation potential actually utilised but that will change soon. As of now, the State’s IPC is 50 lakh hectares. We achieved the target of 40 lakh in 2016-17, which was a record in the State’s history. The previous best by the earlier regime was 32 lakh hectares in a single year,” the minister said, adding five new policies passed by the Cabinet will boost water management. The polices are related to desilting, enhancement of micro irrigation, recycling and reuse of waste water, and piping the water distribution network, among other things.
