UNIT 14 WATER SHARING DISPUTES Structure 14.1 Introduction Aims and Objectives 14.2 River Water Sharing in India 14.3 Theories Pertaining to River Water Disputes 14.4 Law Applicable to River Water Dispute Settlement 14.5 The Cauvery Dispute 14.6 Effect of Water Sharing Dispute 14.7 The Way Forward 14.8 Summary 14.9 Terminal Questions Suggested Readings 14.1 INTRODUCTION Water covers more than 70% of the earth. It fills the ocean and the rivers; resides underground and is also present in the air which we breathe. Great civilisations have risen where water was plentiful and have fallen when the supply of water failed. Today, more than ever water is both slave and master to the people. It is used extensively in almost all activities of man and it is important to remember that even though our demand for water may increase it is not really possible to easily increase the supply. In accordance with the principles adopted at the International Conference on Water and the Environment (Dublin, January 1992), it was agreed that “fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential for life’s sustenance, development of region and preservation of the environment”. Water is a resource which is absolutely necessary for the sustained development of a state. Regrettably, the statistics regarding the availability of fresh water in the world are staggering. It is estimated that 1 billion people do not have access to clean water, and 1.7 billion do not have sanitation. India is a federal democracy, and because rivers cross state boundaries, evolving efficient and equitable mechanisms for allocating river flows has long been an important legal and constitutional issue. Numerous inter-state river-water disputes have erupted since independence when the State’s where split on linguistic basis. The ill-distributed resource river water poses a threat to sovereignty of the Indian states because of socio-political environment and lack of political and legal mechanism to resolve the same. Further, the urgency of reform has been brought out by the increasing scarcity of fresh water as a critical natural resource and the imperatives of sustainable development. The emergence of conflict scenario has developed due to rapid increase in the demand of water while the supply through the river remained more or less same. The increase in demand of river water is partly due to increase in population and partly because of expansion of irrigation
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