India Issues Third National Water Policy Draft as States Protest

India, with about 17 percent of the world’s population, issued a third draft of a National Water Policy after states objected to the division of federal and local legislative powers governing the use of water.

The draft follows efforts in January and May to devise a nationwide legal framework regulating water in a country that has only 4 percent of the world’s renewable water resources, India’s water resources ministry said.

With a growing population, rising agricultural needs and difficulties with wider access to safe water for drinking and domestic demand, “there is a felt need to evolve a broad overarching national legal framework of general principles on water to lead the way for essential legislation on water governance in every state,” the ministry said last month.

The latest draft echoed that statement, focusing on the need to manage water as a community resource amid a national legal framework, Press Trust of India said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Randall Hackley in Zurich at rhackley@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Randall Hackley at rhackley@bloomberg.net