Crisis in Barind Region: Revisiting laws to protect, manage our water sources
According to a report published in The Daily Star recently, groundwater abuse for industrial and agricultural purposes is taking a toll on the Barind region in northwestern Bangladesh.
The region, according to the report, is characterised by decreasing rainfall and depleting groundwater levels, mostly extracted for paddy farming, rice mill operations, and other industrial purposes.
Experts have observed that people in the region are struggling to get drinking water while many paddy farmers are either diversifying into less water-intensive crops or converting their croplands to ponds and brick kilns.
It has also been noted that unchecked use of water has depleted groundwater in a region which also saw lower than average rainfall in recent years.
Stories like these make it necessary to visit the laws that can come in aid for protecting water stress areas as such.
The law that governs this area is The Water Act 2013. Section 17 of the said Act lays down the procedure for declaration of water stress areas and their management. For protection of any water source or any area, the government may, upon recommendation made by the executive committee (constituted under the Act), declare by notification in an official gazette, any area, any part of an area or any land connected thereto, as water stress area.
Under the said section, for proper management of the water stress area, imposition of restrictions by way of issuing protection order is also possible.
Under section 18 of the Act, there shall be preferential use of water from such areas. To that end, abstraction or use of water in a water stress area, shall be made subject to the availability of water, in a particular order of priority: use of water as potable, for household, for agriculture, aquaculture, for balancing of ecosystem, for wildlife, for natural river flow, for industry, for salinity control, for purposes of power generation, for amusement, and finally, for any other purposes not listed before.
The section also states that the order is not unchangeable as such; depending on the perception and opinion of the general people and considering the socioeconomic condition of the water stress area, by notification in official gazette, changes may be brought in the order.
Section 19 also envisages the imposition of restrictions on abstraction of water and the fixing of lowest safe yield level of any aquifer of any area. The Act does not for that matter recognise individual right to water but does create ample scopes for protecting water sources all across the country.
Considering the reported conditions in the Barind Region, the government may conduct necessary inquiry, scrutiny or survey in the region (under section 17) to decide on whether this region can be declared as water stress or not.
Comments