Water Community members provide detailed inputs to the Rajasthan draft water policy.

Given the critical situation of the water sector in Rajasthan and the need for its integrated and coordinated planning, the State Government of Rajasthan set up an expert committee on ‘Integrated Development and Management of Water Resources’. The committee suggested revising the state water policy, following which the draft was prepared and placed on its website for comments. In July 2006, the Water Community assisted in the consultative process, when members analysed the draft policy in context of the 1999 Draft Water Policy, National Water Policy, Rajasthan Groundwater Regulation Bill, 1997, Vyas Committee report and their own experiences. Respondents felt the policy should accord the highest priority to the function of water for sustaining human life.

The long-term availability of water would ultimately depend on how humans conserve ecological systems. When water is an “economic good”, like in irrigation, it needs to be treated as such. At the same time, the State must also not allow the “commoditization of water” to affect adversely its role as a life sustaining, common and social good. They felt that the policy’s emphasis on making water State property is contradictory to the policy’s objective to ensure sustainable community-managed water resources.