Need of the Hour: Translating Water Policies into Action

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Home to the mighty Himalayas, Nepal is rich in water resources. Major rivers emerge from its snowfields and glaciers, cascade through gorges and valleys, and flow into the flatlands of the Terai region.

But despite its water abundance and large potential for hydropower generation, Nepal’s rivers are yet to deliver on the nation’s dreams and hopes of prosperity.

Nepal’s water resources are widely and unequally dispersed, leading to both abundances and shortages depending on season and locations. The country also imports electricity to meet its demands while hydropower infrastructure is gradually being developed.

Furthermore, climate change impacts pose a serious threat to the development and livelihoods of different communities.

People’s aspirations and expectations demand an encouraging policy environment that accelerates water sector improvements and contributes to the country’s current slogan of a ‘prosperous Nepal, happy Nepali’.

Therefore, suitable policies must be developed and implemented to significantly improve the Nepali people’s qualities and standards of living in a sustainable manner.

Nepal’s new Constitution, adopted in 2015, states that every citizen has the right to a clean and healthy environment. It further prescribes that the State shall carry out multi-purpose development of water resources, ensuring the availability of energy, developing sustainable and reliable irrigation, and reduce water-induced disasters by adopting good river management.

The new federal structure allocates the responsibility of managing water resources to all three tiers of government (federal, provincial, local) on the basis of project size.

A comprehensive review of policies, strategies, plans, and legislation related to the water resources sector in Nepal was recently carried out under the CARE for South Asia project.

The study revealed that water sector policies in Nepal, which underpin the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), are evolving as the country ushers in a new era of federalism.

The Water Resources Strategy 2002 was pivotal in directing the adoption of a policy based on resource conservation, environmental protection, and an understanding that river basins should be holistically managed by decentralized, autonomous, and accountable agencies.

The ideas of economic efficiency and social equity were set up to be the cornerstone of all policies.

Complementing the government’s policy landscape, the National Water Plan 2005 laid out short, medium, and long-term action plans to achieve stated national goals.

The Government of Nepal recently unveiled the National Water Resources Policy 2020 with the goal to sustainably conserve, manage and carry out multi-purpose development of water resources to contribute to the economic prosperity and social transformation of the country. It accepts multi-sectoral dimensions of water and embraces IWRM principles, including adopting the basin as a unit of water administration.

This new policy spells out the objectives and lays out strategies to achieve them, each defined by action plans. These include the remittance of river basin plans that cover water accounting, allocation and auditing, and prescribing a science and fact-based approach in its planning and management.

The existing legal framework for water resources management in Nepal is still set out in the Water Resources Act 1992 and complemented by the Water Resources Rules 1993.

The primary features of this Act, among others, are:

a) defining ownership of water resources with the nation;
b) requiring permits for water uses;
(c) institutionalizing water user groups; and
(d) setting the priority order of water use as drinking water, irrigation, agriculture, hydropower, etc., respectively.

Over the years, the Government has promulgated more than 75 policies, acts, rules and guidelines with direct bearings on how water resources are developed and managed.

The Irrigation Policy 2013, Electricity Act 1992, Hydropower Development Policy 2001, and Environment Protection Act 2019 are key examples.

One can conclude that the water resources sector is a heavily regulated sector that often confuses the private sector and deters stakeholders from sustainable engagement.

The situation at the provincial level, however, is slightly different. The provincial governments are yet to fully enact their own legislations related to water and conform to the spirit of federalism.

The federal level needs to set a clear set of standards, umbrella policies and Acts to systemize provincial and local actions.

The review reveals that Nepal faces numerous challenges and its primary need is to translate policies into actions.

Major bottlenecks include lack of capacity, inefficient coordination mechanisms, and overlapping responsibilities of federal, provincial, and local authorities.

Institutions need to be strengthened to build climate adaptation and resilience at all levels. Water harvesting, inter-basin transfers, enhancing water use efficiencies and reuse, as well as groundwater development, can all be adopted for the sustainable development of the water sector in Nepal as drivers for prosperity.

The writer is Water Resources Management Specialist at ADPC

Email: laxman.sharma@adpc.net