अन्तर्राज्यीय नदी जल विवाद

Inter-State River Water Disputes

Water in India is governed under three different Acts which are the following:

The Environmental Protection Act (1986), the River Boards Act (1956) and the Inter-State Water Disputes Act (1956).

Interstate River Water Disputes Act – 1956 (IRWD Act) was first enacted on 28th August, 1956 by Indian parliament on the eve of reorganization of states on linguistic basis to resolve the water disputes that would arise in the use, control and distribution of an interstate river or river valley.

Article 262 of the Constitution of India deals with the adjudication of water disputes.

Article 262 (1) Parliament may, by law, provide for the adjudication of any dispute or complaint with respect to the use, distribution or control of the waters of, or in, any inter-State river or river valley.

Article 262 (2) Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, Parliament may, by law, provide that neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall exercise jurisdiction in respect of any such dispute or complaint as is referred to in clause (1).

Using the powers of Article 262, the Parliament enacted the Interstate River Water Disputes Act, 1956 to resolve the water disputes that would arise in the use, control and distribution of an interstate river or river valley.

Drawbacks of interstate Water Dispute Act, 1956:

The Inter State Water Dispute Act, 1956 which provides the legal framework to address such disputes suffers from many drawbacks as it does not fix any time limit for resolving river water disputes.
Under this Act, a separate Tribunal has to be established for each Inter State River Water Dispute.
Only three out of eight Tribunals have given awards accepted by the States, while Tribunals like Cauvery and Ravi Beas have been in existence for over 26 and 30 years respectively without any award.
Delays are on account of no time limit for adjudication by a Tribunal, no upper age limit for the Chairman or the Members, work getting stalled due to occurrence of any vacancy and no time limit for publishing the report of the Tribunal.
The River Boards Act 1956, which is supposed to facilitate inter-state collaboration over water resource development, remained a ‘dead letter’ since its enactment.
Surface water is controlled by Central Water Commission (CWC) and ground water by Central Ground Water Board of India (CGWB). Both bodies work independently and there is no common forum for common discussion with state governments on water management.

The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017 proposes to streamline the adjudication of inter-state river water disputes and make the present legal and institutional architecture robust.