Draft National Water Policy: Mihir Shah Committee Recommendations and UPSC Notes (UPSC Environment)

In 2019, the Ministry of Jal Shakti constituted a committee under economist Mihir Shah to draft a new National Water Policy. The committee submitted its report in late 2021, and its recommendations remain the most thoroughgoing reimagining of Indian water governance in three decades. The document proposes fundamental changes to the way India manages supply, demand, groundwater and river ecology, and it has direct implications for GS Paper III (environment, agriculture, energy) and GS Paper II (governance, federalism) in the UPSC syllabus.

Why a new water policy

The existing National Water Policy of 2012 is widely viewed as supply-centric, command-and-control and unable to address the cascading water crisis.

• NITI Aayog‘s Composite Water Management Index warned that 21 Indian cities could run out of groundwater by 2030 and that about half the country’s water demand could remain unmet.
• Water tables are dropping in 25 percent of assessed units, and water quality has degraded in two-thirds of monitored rivers.
• Climate change has made precipitation more erratic, river discharge less predictable and drought-flood cycles shorter. Policy built on historical averages no longer fits the hydrology.

The Mihir Shah draft takes these realities as starting assumptions and proposes agility, resilience and flexibility as organising principles.

Issues identified with water policy 2012

The draft diagnoses three kinds of silos that plague Indian water management.

• Irrigation versus drinking water silo: the same aquifer that supplies rural drinking water is drained for irrigation, yet the two are planned and priced separately.
• Surface water versus groundwater silo: rivers dry up when over-extraction of connected aquifers cuts the base flow that sustains them after the monsoon.
• Water versus wastewater silo: urban planners assume clean supply ends where the sewer begins, so wastewater escapes integrated planning and pollutes downstream users.

Key recommendations

Demand management over endless supply

The draft accepts that expanding supply indefinitely has hit natural and economic limits. The central reform is crop diversification. Rice, wheat and sugarcane account for most irrigation water in India. Shifting public procurement toward nutri-cereals, pulses and oilseeds through the ICDS, mid-day meal and Public Distribution System would save water and address nutrition outcomes.

Sustainable groundwater governance

The policy places community-based groundwater management at the centre. Hydrogeological information about aquifer boundaries, storage capacities and flows should be translated into user-friendly formats so that custodian stakeholders can adopt their own aquifer-level protocols. This builds on the Atal Bhujal Yojana model and the participatory aquifer mapping pilots of NAQUIM.

River Rights Act

Rivers, the draft argues, have historically been treated as pure economic resources. The policy proposes a River Rights Act that protects each river's right to flow, meander and reach the sea. The Act would mandate environmental flows, limit sand mining, and restrict river-front urbanisation. The framework mirrors the Whanganui River (New Zealand) and Ganges (Uttarakhand High Court 2017) legal personhood precedents.

Water quality mainstreamed

The draft flags water quality as "the most critical neglected issue" in India today and proposes a dedicated water quality wing in every water ministry at Centre and state. It also proposes an emerging pollutants task team to study pharmaceuticals, micro-plastics, PFAS and endocrine disruptors.

Urban water reform: reduce, recycle, reuse

The basic motto for integrated urban water supply is reduce-recycle-reuse. Specific proposals:

• Decentralised wastewater management, with colony-level sewage treatment plants.
• Reuse of treated wastewater for non-potable purposes such as flushing, firefighting and vehicle washing.
• Restoration of local storages (ponds, lakes, wetlands) as permanent solutions to both floods and droughts, since only about 10 percent of monsoon rainfall is currently captured.
• Nature-based solutions: rain gardens, bio-swales, wet meadows, bio-remediation wetlands, permeable pavements, green roofs and other "blue-green infrastructure" for urban areas.

Smart delivery of existing surface storage

The draft points out that a large share of water stored behind big dams does not reach farmers because of canal losses. It recommends pressurised closed-conveyance pipelines with SCADA control and pressurised micro-irrigation, which could dramatically expand irrigated area at a fraction of the cost of new dams.

Reverse osmosis restraint

Reverse osmosis has spread across India despite generating large volumes of reject water and stripping beneficial minerals. The draft recommends that RO units should be avoided where the total dissolved solids count is less than 500 mg/l, and that municipal water be made safe to drink at the tap as the default.

Restoration of river flows

The policy proposes re-vegetation of catchments, strict management of groundwater extraction in river corridors, restrictions on river-bed pumping and a ban on unscientific sand and boulder mining.

Governance architecture

A recurring theme in the Mihir Shah draft is that water cannot be reformed with the current fragmented bureaucracy. The draft proposes:

• Replacing the existing Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board with a National Water Commission.
• Basin-level river basin organisations as knowledge-intensive, autonomous bodies with authority over surface and groundwater planning in their basins.
• Independent regulatory commissions for water pricing, quality and allocation.

Criticism and pushback

Several state governments and technical bodies have pushed back against the draft on federalism grounds. Water is a State List subject, and any binding commission risks centralisation. Agricultural economists have also questioned whether the crop diversification recommendation is feasible without comprehensive MSP and procurement restructuring. The sugarcane and paddy states view the reforms as threats to existing farmer incomes.

Latest developments (2024-26)

• The Ministry of Jal Shakti circulated the Mihir Shah draft for inter-state consultations in 2023 and 2024; as of early 2026, the final policy is still awaiting Cabinet approval.
• Groundwater levels: CGWB's Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment 2024 confirmed that 736 assessment units are over-exploited, reinforcing the urgency of the demand-management framework.
• Urban water stress: The 2024 heatwaves in Bengaluru and Delhi strengthened the political case for mandatory treated wastewater reuse, one of the draft's cornerstones.
• COP29 commitments: India's revised climate pledges in Baku highlighted water as a key adaptation sector, aligning with the draft's climate resilience framing.
• Several states, including Maharashtra (Jalayukta Shivar 2.0) and Karnataka (groundwater management rules), have begun to implement parts of the draft's framework without waiting for Cabinet approval.
• The Jal Jeevan Mission expanded rural water testing to block level in 2024-25, consistent with the draft’s water quality recommendations.

UPSC Relevance

Prelims focus

• Committee authorship: Mihir Shah Committee, constituted in 2019.
• Institutional proposals: National Water Commission, River Basin Organisations.
• Key legal proposal: River Rights Act.
• BIS 500 mg/l threshold for RO unit recommendation.
• Relationship to existing schemes: Atal Bhujal Yojana, NAQUIM, Jal Jeevan Mission, Jal Shakti Abhiyan.

Mains focus (GS III and GS II)

Typical question framings explore whether the Mihir Shah framework can reform India's water crisis, the trade-offs between demand-side and supply-side interventions, the federal implications of a National Water Commission and a River Rights Act, and the linkages between agricultural procurement and water conservation. A balanced answer cites both the draft's recommendations and its federalism critics, and connects water policy to SDG 6, climate adaptation and India's updated NDCs.

Linkages

The draft interacts with the Dam Safety Act 2021, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023, the Biological Diversity Amendment Act 2023 and the Right to Fair Compensation Act 2013. It also dovetails with the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, the Watershed Development Component guidelines, and the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0.

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