Water Management

Work Overview

The fundamental principle underlying CSE’s water management programme is that the looming water crisis facing the country is not primarily due to a lack of water, but rather arises from mismanagement of water resources. The centralized management paradigm has kept the citizens out and taken away their sense of responsibility towards managing their water.

Ensuring citywide sanitation is challenging and needs involvement of various actors, agencies, city officials and experts in areas such as urban planning, sanitation, technical infrastructure and financing. One of the main issues in enabling city wide sanitation is lack of awareness and good City Sanitation Plan (CSP) with details on capital investments, adjustments of by-laws, adequate administrative structures and local expertise.

Updates

Ensuring citywide sanitation is challenging and needs involvement of various actors, agencies, city officials and experts in areas such as urban planning, sanitation, technical infrastructure and financing. One of the main issues in enabling city wide sanitation is lack of awareness and good City Sanitation Plan (CSP) with details on capital investments, adjustments of by-laws, adequate administrative structures and local expertise.

CSE has put together and submitted a report to the MoUD on “Decentralised Wastewater Treatment and Reuse” as a part of its deliverable as a Centre for Comprehensive Capacity Building, under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (CCBP- JnNURM) for Sustainable Water Management.

CSE has put together and submitted a report to the MoUD on “Urban Rainwater Harvesting: Case studies from different agro-climatic regions” as a part of its deliverable as a Centre for Comprehensive Capacity Building, under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (CCBP- JnNURM) for Sustainable Water Management.

Announcements

Legislations

There are a number of legislations on the national level with the objective of conserving natural resources like water as well for addressing the problem of pollution. However, water being a state subject, the importance of state legislations on the same theme is that much more. Various states have either already formulated or are in the process of drafting legislations tackling natural resources like land and water.

Policies

Already about 10 states have formulated and adopted their own water policies, and the rest are in the process of doing so. The state water policies are comprehensive and treat water as a finite resource. The need to manage water resources in a scientific manner has been recognised in the policies and hence a lot of emphasis has been given to sustainable exploitation of water and groundwater resources.