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Project Document
of regular conflict situation in the district arises from the fact that the Nagarjuna Sagar, a
medium level reservoir constructed for the purpose of irrigation and power generation, is
located in the district. As no effort was made to supply the safe water in the reservoir for
fluorosis affected villages of the district, there were violent protests and strikes. Recently,
the conflict has taken another angle that of rural-urban, after the pipe-line work had begun
to supply drinking water to the capital city – Hyderabad. The people of Nalgonda district
are now threatening to break the pipe-line as they should be the first to get the clean and
safe drinking water.
Another recent conflict is between industrial and agriculture/domestic sectors. The conflict
came into light in three states viz., Kerala, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh of India where
Coca Cola company has started extracting groundwater to meet the supply demands of
their production plants. This resulted in drying up of several hundreds of tube wells in the
vicinity that was providing irrigation/domestic water to the communities residing in the
villages nearby. The communities have started organizing themselves against the Coca
Cola company and organized large-scale protests at both the places. Now the governments
have no choice but to rethink the policy options of addressing these inequalities in the
groundwater use.
A 1e
Scope for sustainable use of groundwater
In the recent years, emphasis is given for sustainable utilization of groundwater by various
stakeholders. The main reasons for the focus are; dwindling resource base, increasing
demands of growing population, incomplete understanding of the water resource systems,
inadequate monitoring network and lack of political will to introduce laws for sustainable
water use.
Water management plans and regulations can only be enforced locally. Water quality
provides good example. Although legislation and effluent standards exist in many places,
experience shows that regulations are often ineffective at regional or national level. However,
regulations are enforced where local pressure is exerted by those directly affected and
where local government assumes responsibility. This makes all the difference between
water regulation on paper and water management in practice. Local action and local water
management experiences provide opportunities to learn from reality and to find out what
does and does not work in practice. This experience can then be used to create models
that have the potential to be applied in a much wider context.
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