Dimapur, June 22: For a tribal community indoctrinated by decades of political violence into seeing only politics and political issues as important, matters such as depleting water levels and Swidden (so-called “jhum”) cultivation do not hold fire, nor fan the fire of activism.
The scientific analogy that the extinction of bees would push humankind into extinction, literally, is a correlative truth of life that tribal communities such as those of Nagaland have yet to fully understand. One silent, but gradually disturbing instance of such underestimated issues is the case of depleting water resources in the hilly northeastern state.
The dangers posed by depleting water resources and the lack of sustainable water management in Nagaland could only mean a move in the universal direction of degeneration: adverse impact on livelihood, agriculture production, rural development and, in turn, impact on the demographic economics of the state and her people for generations to come. In February this year, for the first time since Nagaland’s inception as a state, the government of Nagaland placed on the table the ‘Nagaland Water Policy 2016.’ The policy-document was handed over to the government with accompanying acknowledgment that the modern maladies of Climate Change and pollution, among others, was staring to affect the quality and quality of water in Nagaland.
The final draft of the policy-document was obtained by this reporter on Wednesday, June 22 from the Indian Environment Law Organization / Offices (IELO), a legal group understood to have helped German company German Development Co-operation (GIZ) in drafting the policy.
The document states that the issue of water resource development had been in constant neglect even long after the formation of Nagaland as a state (December 1, 1963).
“After the formation of state of Nagaland, water resource development has not received required attention and priority resulting in fragmented institutional framework and skewed water governance,” the document states.
The predominant sources of water in Nagaland are surface water in rivers, streams, ponds and natural springs and subsurface water occurring as ground water. Nagaland has four main rivers, namely, Doyang, Dhansiri, Dhiku and Tizu.
The challenges to mitigating current outflow, augmenting existing sources and ensuring sustainability of sources are myriad as the document shows:
• Villages in Nagaland are located at the hilltops and their population has been increasing since their establishment. Once sufficient, the existing locally available water resources are unable to meet existing water demand in the villages for drinking and sanitation purposes. Additional sources of water supply in the villages therefore need to be augmented.
• The existing system of community water storage structure in the villages aimed at meeting domestic water requirements of the inhabitants need improvement for ensuring water quality, whereas quantity of water needs to be seen in the context of increasing potable water use in the villages.
• After the formation of state of Nagaland, water resource development has not received required attention and priority resulting in fragmented institutional framework and skewed water governance.
• Due to a wide temporal and spatial variation in availability of water, likely to exacerbate due to a number of variable factors including climate change impacts resulting in incidences of water related disasters such as loss of soil fertility, flash floods and river meandering, the water crisis in the state is likely to deepen.
• Access to water for drinking and other domestic needs is an emerging challenge in many urban areas, towns and villages in the state. The potential for inter-village water transfer with the payment for ecosystem services mechanism needs exploration.
• The scenario of groundwater in Nagaland is rather oblique. Groundwater being part of hydrological cycle is sufficiently not addressed in the water resource planning in the state whereas instances of groundwater exploitation are increasing with an alarming rate.
“The development of water resources projects in Nagaland needs to be done within the framework of community participation by involving village level institutions,” a recommendation states. It was underlined that the development of irrigation infrastructure was critical to ensuring food sustainability in the state.
The document also warned that natural water bodies, streams and springs that form core of natural water infrastructure in the state are being increasingly polluted. Springs that are the main source of drinking water supply are however protected by traditional institutional regime at the village level, which needs to be further strengthened with scientific inputs.
“However, communities value water as per customs and sanctions, consciousness pertaining to existing water stress that is likely to result in water scarcity needs to be created at the Village Council level,” the document stated.
Another urgent demand that redress sought was that scientific capacity building of institutions for the integrated water resource management in the state needs to be undertaken on an urgent basis.
Likewise, spring and stream mapping and characteristic of catchment areas, recharge zones and flood plains needs to be better understood towards planning for any likely change caused due to climatic variations and incidents of natural disasters.
The solution as highlighted by the conservation in the document is a six-pronged strategy:
• First, the state is committed to give a broad and uniform policy direction to all state water resource management institutions for creating enabling environment and institutional vision for achieving the policy objectives, notably equitable and sustainable water resource management.
• Second, through this Policy, the state aims to restructure the fundamental roles and relationship between institutions involved in water resources management to improve their coordination and harmonize their operations. The restructuring is also aimed at strengthening and empowering local as well as state level institutions towards achieving their full participation in the water resources management.
• Third, the state, with the objective to ensure basin level planning, will create new institutional structure at the basin level or rework the existing institutional arrangements to create basin level institutional regime that will coordinate with village level institutions on integrated water management.
• Fourth, the State will place high priority on enhancing scientific and personnel capacity of water sector institutions to promote scientific planning, adaptation measures and organized ground level implementation.
• Fifth, the State will ensure that water and land use planning is synergized as in the unique agricultural context of Nagaland the two are inter-dependent. Hence, any capacity development in water resource planning has to take view of capacity enhancement for land use planning as a necessary measure.
• Sixth, most importantly, the State will enact a comprehensive state water law (Acts, Rules and Regulations) and enabling rules to give effect to the above-mentioned strategies in a time bound manner. The intended water legislation will aim at complementing the role of Village Councils in managing land and water resources in the state.
The document has cautioned that due to a wide temporal and spatial variation in availability of water, the current situation is likely to exacerbate due to a number of variable factors including climate change impacts resulting in incidences of water related disasters such as loss of soil fertility, flash floods and river meandering, the water crisis in the state is likely to deepen.
“Owing to the unique hydrological, social and legal context of Nagaland, a state specific water policy is necessitated which is responsive to its existing and future needs encompassing a long-term water resource management program,” it stated.
