Proposed Single Water Tribunal

On 14th March 2017 a bill was introduced in Lok Sabha to set up a single tribunal to solve all the inter-state water disputes. The alarming issue has come to light after the recent riots in the state of Karnataka over the Cauvery river dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, two states which are otherwise very closely related culturally and socially. The bill was termed  “revolutionary” by water resource minister Uma Bharti; while there have been claims from the Bhartruhari Mahtab from BJD that the bill is very wrongly drafted and also asked the central government to consult independent states before enacting it.

CONCEPT

A tribunal is a body established in order to settle any dispute. The interstate river water dispute act was introduced in 1956 during the reorganisation of states.It has gone through many amendments but the main idea remains that whenever there is a dispute between 2 or more states over river water a separate tribunal is set up to resolve the issue without having any time period limit for adjudication by the tribunal. Many cases have dragged on for 10 or more years and there has been no swift action in most of these cases.

Therefore a new bill has been passed in Lok Sabha to enact a single water tribunal. A single water tribunal will be a permanent single tribunal with multiple branches to solve an individual case as and when the needs arise.

The main characteristics of single water tribunal are:

1. A single permanent body with multiple branches which will cease to exist once the case is solved.
2. It states the decision by the single tribunal will be final and the states would have to adhere to it.
3. The maximum time period for the tribunal to have an adjudication of any water dispute will be 4 and a half years.
4. The tribunal will have one chairperson(retire judge of a supreme court) to a 5-year term or till he or she attains the age of 70(whichever is earlier), one vice chairperson and no more than 6 members.
5. It will have a mechanism by which it will try to solve the disputes through negotiations at the Dispute Resolution Committee level before the tribunal solves the case upon a request by the state.

Advantages

1. Swift decisions: Previously there was no time limit as to when the cases should be resolved and therefore there are tribunals like Cauvery and Ravi-Beas tribunals have been in existence for more than 15 years without any award. To end this problem the single tribunal will have a time limit expected to be 4 and a half years in which it will have to come up with a swift solution for each case.
2. Transparency in Data Collection: The new bill will allow setting up of a new agency which will transparently collect data of all the rivers and their basins throughout the country and store them in a centralised data bank and information system.
3. The process will be streamlined: After the bill gets enacted the processes are supposed to get streamlined as there is one umbrella body to look after all the disputes nationally with individual branches which will not be existent after the case gets resolved.
4. No publication required: The new bill allows the decision that has been passed by the single water tribunal to be notified when it is passed, that means it does not have to publish the result in a gazette.
5. Final swift decisions: The bill gives the power to the single tribunal to exercise their decisions over the states regarding the disputes. The states will have to bind by the final decision of the tribunal.

Disadvantages

1. Time collecting data and keeping it updated: The newly appointed agency will take some time to collect all the national level data. Not only this it will have to keep all the data updated regularly and with the erratic rains and weather patterns, it will be a daunting task.
2. Lack of experts: With only the chairperson being a retired supreme court judge the tribunal clearly lacks adequate people having enough expertise to solve cases between the states.
3. A number of cases likely to grow in future: With the current rate the number of disputes in near future is expected to increase and the current tribunal seems too small to handle large no of cases at once. Moreover, the creation of individual branches may also be complex and take some time.

Conclusion

Though setting up of a permanent and single water tribunal is a positive way forward it needs to be enacted in a more structured way. Proper binding laws should be introduced along with more no of experienced bodies in the tribunal. Surely with these measures, the bill will be the way forward for handling all the water bodies disputes in our country.