Cooperative Federalism & River Water Disputes in India

Essence of Cooperative federalism finds its place in most sacrosanct document i.e. Constitution of India. It provides strong centre with working hands of states well provided in Schedule-7. But when it comes to river water governance entire fabric and setup of cooperative federalism finds conflicting notion, which proves to be challenging factor particularly in matter of river water governance. Today world’s most important demanding natural resources is fresh river water which is in state of crisis and shortage due to impact of climate change, so is the condition in India.  Today our most of the states and the central government are at loggerhead with respect to issue of trans-state river water sharing. More than 20 rivers in India is meeting with conflicting situation with respect to use of water.Through our constitution provides for special mechanism under Constitution of India Article 262 to deal with the issue of water dispute. But lack of proper mechanism and implementation and cooperation among states has created dubious and disturbing situation which has created riot like situation in several state. We can take the example of Cauveri River Water Tribunal as well Satluj Yamuna Link Canal, case projecting interlinking of rivers. These all cases present fatal picture of non cooperation among the state and central government despite cooperative federalism mandate provided in the constitution of India. Today government at central and state level are spending crores of money on litigation involving question of water sharing administration, which is affecting the health of common people and farmers of india. As we all know that fresh water resources are limited in our country. We need to address this problem because most of the rivers like Ganga, Yamuna , Narmada , Mahanadi ,  Krishna , Godavari these all river are trans state sharing river which has to follow the principle of equitable sharing and respecting the cause of upper and lower riparian state and basic principles of river water sharing mechanism.

Case of Satluj –Yamuna link canal is disaster for Indian cooperative federalism as in this case four state named Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi (NC)are involved and signed an agreement to built a canal in order to reducing water deficiency of Delhi and Rajasthan during summer and more than 200 Crores of  money has been spent and finally Punjab unilaterally withdrawn the agreement asking to remove/shut  the canal which cannot be done because more than half of the work has already been done, even Supreme Court taking the cognizance of the matter asked the states not to waste people’s money and utilise the resources for the common benefit based on the principle of cooperative federalism but states are reluctant to follow  and satisfying their own political interest. Till now despite Supreme Court interference no development has  been made.

Same is the condition with Cauvery river water dispute where after judgment there was violence among the people of Tamil nadu and Karnatka because of non satisfaction as  it will affect the lives of farmers and common people.

The above mentioned case shows grim reality that how states and centre are behaving with each other which is violation of constitutional mandate. So far as river water governance is concerned despite having the laws there lies huge gap and drawback in the laws relating to river -water sharing mechanism which requires quick amendment in order to reduce the conflict among the states. Thus India is in need of robust river water sharing laws which can benefit all the Indian states and  instead of becoming bone of contention it must become life line of every Indians because without water no one can survive.