Central Water Commission (CWC) has released a paper on pricing of water for agriculture, their proposing methodology and principles.

Need for revision in pricing criteria
• Subsidies: Water subsidies provided through public utilities, amounted to 0.6% of global gross domestic product in 2012 while inequitable, disproportionately benefiting upper-income groups.
• Archaic Pricing: State governments tend to levy water charges on a crop-area basis, and the rates are unrevised for years, which contributing to water wastage.
• Low receipts: Physical and operational inadequacies of present system of pricing resulting in low and uncertain utility and consequent low collection of water charges.
• Inefficient agricultural practices: Present agricultural system is dominated by water intensive crop and water usage by famers is more than of global average to produce a kg of husked rice.
• Sustainability: Lack of incentives to farmers for sustainable use of water resulting into over utilisation of both the surface and ground water, which is shown in salinity of soil and depleting water table.

Recommendation

• Methodology

1.Water Rates should be adequate to cover the fixed costs of irrigation works.
2.The 14th finance Commission recommended that the basic tenets of both the quantity and timeliness (volumetric basis) of supply of water with periodic revision should be duly considered.
3.The water rates should vary from one canal system to another canal system in the same State
4.In canal commands where the State has to supply water by lifting it, water rates charged have to be kept higher than the rates for gravity flow and after take into account additional cost of lifting.

• Legal & Institution

1.Equitable access to water for all and its fair pricing, for drinking and other uses such as sanitation, agricultural and industrial, should be arrived at through independent statutory Water Regulatory Authority.
2. Water Users Associations (WUAs) should be given statutory powers to collect and retain a portion of water charges, manage and it should be given the freedom to fix the rates subject to floor rates.
3.The Water Rates should be such as to convey the scarcity value of the resource to the users and to foster the motivation for economy in water use.

• Supportive measures

1. Recycle, Reuse water should be incentivised through tariff system.
2. National Water Policy 2012, stated that the over-withdrawal of groundwater should be minimized by regulating the use of electricity for its extraction. Separate electric feeders for pumping ground
water for agricultural use should be considered.
3. Efforts should be given to researching better seed varieties in order to disincentives water usage.
4. Second Irrigation Commission 1972 suggested that Prevailing water rates in neighbouring States/UTs etc. also play an important role and have to be given due consideration in fixation of water rates.

Challenges

• Hardship to Farmers: Water pricing for farmers will be tough task as they are already reeling under severe economic hardship and agricultural distress.
• Policy Action: because the public procurement policies also promote cultivation of water-intensive crops, sometimes in those very states where the water usage is most inefficient.
• Ownership: It will rise to legal and economic distress to farmers because, the subsurface water resources belong to the property owner. The owner is within his rights to drain the entire aquifer that may extend far beyond the boundaries of his property.
• Administration: Lack of disintegrated approach, as water falls between several agencies for instance agriculture, the biggest bulk user, is outside the purview of the ministry of water resources.

Way forward

• Watershed management: It offers the scope to practise integrated water resource management program at a local level with participation of communities.
• Efficient utilization of water resources by regulating the unrestrained exploitation of groundwater and aggressive pursuit of water conservation for enhancing supply through increased access to water resources using modern irrigation methods; changes in design of irrigation infrastructure (reservoirs/dams, canal network); rain water harvesting and it’s recycling; improved reservoir/dam operations; re-use of drainage water and wastewater; and transfer of water between river basins etc.

Conclusion
Water used for irrigation is an economic good and its logical pricing is a key to improving water allocation and encouraging conservation in order to deal with every stakeholder in water governance such as individual, community, Government, NGOs, a comprehensive National Water Code (mooted by National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development), i.e. an integrated set of water laws is needed.