The document outlines the urgent need for a legal framework to conserve rivers and ensure water security in India, highlighting the degradation of waterbodies and lack of governmental accountability. It discusses various constitutional provisions regarding the protection and management of rivers, emphasizing the roles of local bodies and panchayats. It proposes new legislation to empower local governance, protect ecological integrity, and restrict harmful activities affecting waterways.

1. Framework for a Law for
Conservation of Rivers
and Water Security
Anupam Saraph, Ph.D.

2. state of our rivers
• 6 decades of self-rule, 676 districts
• almost all pristine waterbodies destroyed
• not one district with waterbodies that are not
encroached, polluted or exploited
• government itself has projects to build roads in
rivers, lay sewers in rivers, even buildings in rivers
• rivers have become sewers

3. database of rivers
• no government department has maps of all major
and minor rivers or even a list of them
• no government department explicitly charged to
list or protect rivers
• no account of perennial streams going seasonal
• no record of draughts or floods associated with
loss of streams

4. why save our rivers?
• draughts and floods
• climate change
• water security
• food security
• biodiversity

5. do our rivers matter?
• Article 51A(g) of the Constitution: “it is the
fundamental duty of every Indian to to protect and
improve the natural environment including
forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have
compassion for living creatures”

6. do our rivers matter?
• Article 262(1) of the Constitution: “the Parliament
to make law to adjudicate dispute or complaint
with respect to the use, distribution or control of
the waters of, or in, any inter-State river or river
valley in accordance with entry 56 on Union List
in the Seventh Schedule allowing for the
regulation and development of inter-State rivers
and river valleys”

7. do our rivers matter?
• Article 257 of the Constitution: merely treats
rivers as waterways and permits the Union
Government to use them as a means of
communication as part of its functions with
respect to naval, military and air force works in
accordance with entry 24 on the Union List in the
Seventh Schedule allowing shipping and
navigation on inland waterways, declared by
Parliament by law to be national waterways, as
regards mechanically propelled vessels

8. do our rivers matter?
• Entry 13 in the State List in the Seventh Schedule
allows state governments to legislate on
communications, that is to say, roads, bridges,
ferries, and other means of communication not
specified in List I subject to the provisions in the
Union and Concurrent List.

9. do our rivers matter?
• Entry 17 in the State List in the Seventh Schedule
permits State governments to deal with water
supplies, irrigation and canals, drainage and
embankments, water storage and water power
subject to the provisions of entry 56 of List I

10. do our rivers matter?
• Entry 3 in the Eleventh Schedule provides power
and responsibility to panchayats to undertake
minor irrigation, water management and
watershed development.

11. do our rivers matter?
• Entry 5 in the Twelfth Schedule provides the
power and responsibility to Municipalities to
ensure water supply for domestic, industrial and
commercial purposes

12. do our rivers matter?
• Article 243ZD (3) (a) (i) of the Constitution requires
a District Planning Committee to consolidate the
plans prepared by panchayats and Municipalities in
the district and prepare a development plan for the
district as a whole and have regard to matters of
common interest between the Panchayats and the
Municipalities including spatial planning, sharing of
water and other physical and natural resources, the
integrated development of infrastructure and
environmental conservation

13. do our rivers matter?
• Madras River Conservancy Act 1884 provides
powers to a Conservator of Rivers to survey and
prohibit certain activities like cultivation

14. purpose of a new act
• purpose to protect and conserve rivers

15. powers required to
accomplish the purpose
• empower local bodies as implied in the 11th and
12th schedule of the constitution to enable area
sabhas or river panchayats
• empower area-sabhas or river panchayats to
protect local parts of river
• empower river parliaments to protect entire river

16. empowering local bodies
• list and publish maps of all water bodies
• reserve and protect all water bodies
• prohibit the growth of the water block beyond its water
carrying capacity, and its natural capacity to absorb
pollution free effluents from treatment processes or plants
• undertake and publish an social audit of all water bodies
• report on all action taken to free water bodies from
violations, aggression, pollution or exploitation within each
water block

17. empowering river panchayat
• powers to ensure the biological, ecological and hydrological integrity of the
waterbody
• resolutions of the Panchayat on ensuring the integrity of the waterbody must be
binding on the Local Authority
• ensure that no person is deprived of water access or permitted any privilege
beyond that permissible
• maintain a record of the users with access to the waterbody and any complaints
received about access or other violations
• maintain a record of the water withdrawal rate by the block
• audit that documents the aggression on the waterbody and waterfront, the
pollution through any discharge into the waterbody and restrictions, if any, on
drawing water, flora or fauna from the waterbody

18. empowering the parliament
• represent each Water Block of the waterbody and exercise all such powers to
maintain the biological, ecological and hydrological integrity of the watercourse
• prohibit all activity that alters the natural flow or poses any threat to the
biological, ecological or hydrological integrity of any waterbody or be an aquifer
interference activity
• ensure water bodies are able to flow naturally, unconstrained and without
pollution, building walls, fences, barricades, channels, buildings, sheds of
temporary or permanent nature within any water body or waterfront must be
prohibited
• laying pipes, cables, or any other construction in any water body or waterfront,
undertaking industrial activities, intensive farming, mining, dumping, or roads
must be prohibited; as must the release any substances, sewage, sullage, and
effluents that contaminate any waterbody.

19. safe activities
• rainwater release into water bodies or waterfronts
provided it is released through open streams
• conservation activities and afforestation with
indigenous trees on waterfronts where no trees
exist
• seasonal fishing and organic farming
• sustainable withdrawal for each water block

20. unsafe activities
• construction, laying pipes or cables
• dumping, storage, mining
• industrial activities
• release of effluents
• activities that threaten the biological, ecological or
hydrological integrity

21. draft acts to enable purpose
• union framework act for conservation of rivers
• state act for water security