Thaindian News

By Arun Kumar
Washington, Aug 31 (IANS) With the global population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, the World Bank has cited India’s Improved Rural Community Water Project in Andhra Pradesh as a model for better water management.

“Experience in Andhra Pradesh has shown that actions on the ground tailored with reforms have proven to be strong incentives in fostering the reform agenda,” says a review of the World Bank Group’s water strategy released Tuesday.

The Mid-Cycle Implementation Progress Report for the Water Resources Strategy - entitled Sustaining Water for All in a Changing Climate - calls for a more integrated approach to water management.

“We can’t properly tackle global priorities of food security, renewable energy, adaptation to climate change, public health, and urbanisation unless we manage water better,” said Julia Bucknall, water sector manager for the World Bank.

India’s Andhra Pradesh project “successfully combines the three major targeting mechanisms” of geographic targeting and a number of use self selection and/or means tested targeting to increase their targeting effectiveness, the review notes.

Building on the successes of reform in Andhra Pradesh, additional states have embarked with Bank support on reforming their irrigation; these include ongoing projects in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.

Additional initiatives have also burgeoned in neighbouring riparian countries, with emerging activity on the Indus Basin in Pakistan and river basin work in Nepal, the review notes.

On the international water stage the launch of the South Asia Water Initiative (SAWI) aimed at supporting riparian countries on both international and national river basin issues is an important step forward, it says.

In India, in urban water, the focus has been on sectoral reform building on ongoing good examples such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the review says.

In hydropower, the reform process has also made progress through the energy agenda. Bank engagement has been consolidated in India with the financing of two major hydropower projects in Rampur (412MW) and Vishnugad Pipalkoti (444MW).

In India, the initial reform in Maharashtra laid the groundwork for river basin institutions with adequate instruments for water regulation and allocation, it says.

The pioneering work in Maharashtra has further stimulated other states in championing the basin approach with ongoing work on the Alaknanda River Basin and most recently the establishment of the Ganga National River Basin Authority in February 2009, the review noted.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in