On Kaveri

Change the ground, er water rules

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

This is my response to Mint’s request for comment:

The political and constitution crisis is a direct consequence of the faulty basis on which the decision to allocate Kaveri river waters is being made. Regardless of which court or tribunal and which year, whatever allocation it decides will be wrong; and one or the other side will be dissatisfied enough to contest the decision. This is the reason why this dispute has persisted for more than a century. We cannot blame courts or political leaders, because they are trying to make the best out of a faulty set of ground rules.

The ground rules must change: the principle on which water is allocated cannot be based on an arbitrary historical snapshot of the South Indian economy. Unless we move to principles that acknowledge water is scarce, water use patterns are changing rapidly, have incentives for new technology and allocations need to keep pace with the economic growth, we will be doomed to social acrimony, constitutional crises and political violence.

See Nidheesh’s report in the newspaper, and my Pragati essay on how river water can be better managed.

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