Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
Governments would be needed for inter-state rivers.
• The importance of river revitalization would need a high-profile coordination
and oversight body at the Center, such as a Committee
of Secretaries reporting to a Group of Ministers answerable to the
Prime Minister.
• Grassroot planning and implementation: The cutting edge of the
program would be at the sub-district level, the block/taluka, the
Gram Panchayat, and individual villages/settlements. Panchayati Raj
Institutions could be empowered to play a crucial role in promoting
the twin strategy of conservation and livelihoods security. But this
also depends on the extent of devolution by the State Government
to PRIs of powers, functions, funds and functionaries. In many
states parallel institutions set up to implement government
programs are more salient than say, Gram Panchayats. In general,
the Gram Panchayat could be a nodal agency for oversight of village
and settlement level planning. A pragmatic approach would be
to spearhead implementation with the strongest communitybased
institutions existing. These could be the Community Forest
Resource management committees under FRA in forest areas, Village
Watershed Committees (VWC), FPOs and other farmer organizations,
Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC), women’s SHGs or
traditional community institutions.
• Monitoring, evaluation and learning: A multi-faceted program of
this kind needs a robust M&E and learning framework. Monitoring
has to be both concurrent and periodic. Independent agencies with
this role need to be involved from the very inception of the program,
at the stage of preparation of the program logical framework and
the implementation plan, and subsequently for baseline studies.
Learning from the program requires concurrent research on
the validity of its basic premise - the impact of community-led
afforestation and agro-forestry on river flows and farmer/forest
community incomes. Multi- and inter-disciplinary science research
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