A rare breed of techno-bureaucrat who  is highly knowledgeable but has a genuine sense of social commitment; rose to the topmost echelon in career yet remained most modest to the core and patient with those who think differently. As a water sector engineer with the government, Dr Chitale went through challenging assignments like restoration of water supply after the 1961 Panshet dam collapse; changing Mumbai water supply plan from a closed 60 km pipeline to inclusive water supply scheme for irrigation en-route, power generation unit and underground tunnels; Yamuna's artificial channels to irrigate areas east of Delhi and many such. Bagging many awards, he reached the pinnacle of his career as Secretary of the Union Ministry of Water Resources in 1989. He was instrumental in creating National Water Board and formulating a National Water Strategy. He was at the forefront in laying down the Ganga Action Plan which was later developed as nationwide programme covering several rivers. In 1993, Dr Chitale was appointed as Secretary-General of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID). He played a major role in creating the World Water Council and the Global Water Partnership and actively promoted national and area water partnerships through the regional water partnership for South Asia. Dr Chitale chaired Maharashtra's Water and Irrigation Commission which prepared a thirty year perspective of water development.

  He is promoting river basin management and governance approach to various water related issues and ardently believes in conflict resolution through stakeholders' dialogue, partnerships and voluntary networks in water management. Here, Dr. Madhavrao Chitale elaborates on some pertinent issues of water and also candidly admits the shortcomings in a free-wheeling discussion with Ms. Surekha Sule.

On Area Water Partnership

  For example, out of Bhima Water Partnership, Patalganga Water Partnership, Upper Godavari Water Partnership, Purna Water Partnership - all in Maharashtra, some of the vision documents are masterpieces. Now the best model is the Patalganga Water Partnership. Latest is that the community oriented voluntary organization Yusuf Meheralli Centre at Tara (a village in Patalganga basin near Panvel) has accepted the responsibility to be the host organization for the Patalganga Water Partnership. Right from Reliance Industries and others, including chemical industries, Gram Panchayats and Municipalities in the Patalganga river basin, it has succeeded in bringing all of them on a common platform to have serious dialogue and then hammer out from these efforts a common vision. Now next step will be to implement that vision. Area Water Partnership vision is the new thing for a geographical region of small river basin or tributaries between 10000 to 20000 sq km.

Out of this vision we must have a framework for action. Vision alone is not enough and today the only AWP in the world which has a well defined framework for action is the Patalganga Water Partnership as to what is to be done in next 20 years.

Is it? I must talk to Shri Patankar again. (Shri Patankar is from the Indian Water Works Association – the host organization of Patalganga Area Water Partnership ).
Yes, you must speak to Patankar about the development of the vision document, action plan and also with Yusuf Meheralli Centre at Tara. If you look at the document, you will be impressed how they have well defined activities and out of the partner organizations, who will play what role – whether these partners will finance or work out technical details or go to villages and implement etc. That is where we stand today as far as the Global Water Partnerships stream is concerned. Now Upper Godavari Partnership, Upper Bhima Partnership, Tamraparni Water Partnership near Shivkashi south of Madura in TN where there is problem of pollution.

How many AWPs have been formed in India?
In total there are eight. Besides these five in Maharashtra, there is Tamraparni in Tamil Nadu, Chitra near Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh) and near Hoshangabad on number of tributaries there is a local water partnership. Our other efforts are to develop Musi River Partnership at Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) where it has been discussed again and again but not taken shape. We are trying to promote water partnerships in Bundelkhand and Rajasthan.
  We have identified some AWPs in South Asia as whole and to begin with we are trying to establish some 100 water partnerships. For example in Karachi, the geographical region in Karachi is such that there is shortage of water and salinity. So there is a need for developing partnership along the lake; only then Karachi can survive. But this situation is totally different from other cities in Pakistan like Lahore or Islamabad. In Bangladesh they were trying to develop a water partnership around a tributary of Ganga near Farakka. So like this we made beginning with 35.

To be very frank, a leading social worker at Tara's Yusuf Meheralli Centre accompanied me during my assignment on Patalganga pollution some 4-5 years ago and I started right from near its origin at Gagangiri Ashram at Khopoli and traveled along the river through Khopoli, Khalapur, Panvel and came to the point where it discharges in Dharamtar Creek. At that time at least I was told that this Patalganga Area Water Partnership is merely on paper and partners just get together at some resort and discuss something and forget
Yes, it was so in the beginning. Initially there are always difficulties in AWP and there are always some major players who have certain self-esteem.

People had simple demand in Patalganga. The Common Effluent Treatmetn Plant (CETP) pipe was laid till a point short of the creek and the effluents were actually discharged in Patalganga River itself and not deep into the creek. With high tide, the effluent flowed back and spread into farms. So people wanted it extended further so as to discharge right into the sea. One of the industries closer to this discharge point preferred simply discharging into the river on holidays and Sundays instead of sending it all the way to the CETP. So how to make such partners responsible?
Yes, AWPs have to attempt to get all such entities on board and develop a framework for action. This itself is an achievement. Now whatever has been decided as partnership programme has to be implemented and we have to watch that and help them implement.

I have seen Bhima Water Partnership vision document and found it quite good. How far have they come?
Bhima, somehow for various reasons could not develop framework for action and encourage partners to accept the responsibilities.

Upper Godavari Partnership at Nashik also started on some action and I liked their school programmes of water pass books where children keep account of water use at home and learn how to save through simple water saving habits. Also they perform plays/street plays for awareness creation.
However, Upper Godavari Partnership is going what I call, a-la-carte style (laughs). Depending on the local issues coming up, they are getting together and address those issues. There is no long-term vision or long-term strategy evolved. But such a long term strategy has been developed in Purna basin near Akola (Maharashtra). After Patalganga, it is second in the forefront.

Lot of people may not even know of such model. How would they know about such organization and whom should they look up for help?
India being so large, there will be six zonal water partnerships. And only one has clicked so far and that is south zone because of Bhavani Shankar in Bangalore. He is trying to bring such willing organizations, partners together and guide them

Where is India Water Partnership office located & how is it functioning?
Unfortunately, India Water Partnership got weakened partly because of the change of their host institution, changes in the secretariat and changes in the formal office bearers. Today, India Water Partnership has not remained effective and one reason is that they did not render proper accounts to the Global Water Partnership (Laughs). Currently Indian Society for Human Resources Development in Delhi is the formal host but they are unfortunately not taking much interest because their main interest is different i.e. human resource development. So while choosing a host, we must select one which has long term stake in water
Another mistake South Asia Water Partnership made was revolving secretariat. In the beginning, we selected Water & Land Management Institute (WALMI) at Aurangabad as the host for South Asia Water Partnership and it would have been in the interest of South Asia for WALMI to stay as host for at least for 10-15 years with no default, progressing fast and innovative ideas taking root. But objections were raised about the secretariat being in India continuously. So it was decided to change host organization every two years which was a wrong decision. It went to Bangladesh by the time they understood water partnership mechanism it went to Sri Lanka. Since they could not run it, they asked International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to look into it but IWMI could not. Then it came back to India and Suresh Prabhu is the chairman now. He could not find proper support to find an organization which is involved in water and can play role of the host organization. That is where things are now. Suresh Prabhu is chairman since January 2008 and six months are gone. The tenure has to be more than five years and I tried to persuade members

On Water Conflicts

On one hand, the pressure is mounting on water resources and on the other hand, there seem to be no effective mechanisms to resolve conflict and provide solutions. Is there some way out? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future water situation? Are things going to get a lot worse before they get better? What are the bright spots?
Aurangabad (Maharashtra) is situated on a ridge with two important rivers Sukhna and Kham on east and west and interconnected in water management. Both of them join Godavari and one of them joins Paithan reservoir. It is a very complex system. So Aurangabad water partnership is not one river system but two rivers managed together – a linked basin management. Thus technically, area water partnership is defined as either one single tributary of the river or hydraulically linked areas.
The lesson we learnt here was that the horizons of our information must change. We have to have comprehensive information before we put water management on systematic lines. Different entities have information only on limited aspects of water. If you ask Aurangabad Municipal Corporation, they will tell you how much water is being consumed. They will not tell you how much groundwater exists below the city itself or what is the river flow in Kham or Sukhna. So all related information put together is the starting point of the dialogue. After that is done then the second stage is an open dialogue of all stakeholders. So you have to identify these stakeholders. Large organizations particularly in Indian context still carry legacy of the British regime which empowered them for administration and maintenance of law & order. Such organizations find it difficult to shed the old legacy and accept the path of dialogue and participation. They want “we tell you, you do it” kind of an approach. And we know what they say in a situation is mostly wrong (laughs at his own criticism of bureaucracy) because they have not thought of the comprehensive scenario. So first step is systematic information gathering and then open dialogue of all stakeholders. But in the identification of the stakeholders, weaker sections and weaker societies of rural areas many often are not thought of. A conscious effort is to be made in this dialogue that the weaker sections who are more affected but have less voice because they are less organized are to be taken care of.

But who should initiate such local partnership activities right from collecting information and putting it to the people?
That is where I am coming to third step. There has to be a voluntary organization to initiate these two steps. Where ever these voluntary organizations came forth, the ball started rolling. Where voluntary organizations are absent, government obviously is not opposed to this idea but has its own agenda. And that agenda unfortunately in the democratic society is influenced by the local political set up which does not have a long term, 25-30 year strategy. So when all local well -meaning groups which are away from these but which have long term view get established purely for the love of voluntary work, only then these things start moving and they are moving as you see in so many water partnerships.

So Bhima and Patalganga collected all the information when they prepared their vision document.
Yes they could do it when the voluntary organization was the backbone. Then the fourth thing is that there has to be a consensus on the approach after bringing stakeholders together. And that involves tremendously patient work.
  We have very good example in the world in the International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage, World Water Council and Global Water Partnership. We have all participating in Nile basin – one of the largest basins in the world. This basin has ten countries and it was decided that every year all ten countries will come together in one country and have open dialogue on what is going to be future of Nile. If at all something has gone wrong, they will discuss what has gone wrong and what needs to be done in the future. Thus, from 1995 to 2008, one ten year cycle of open dialogue in ten countries has taken place and that has opened up the minds. Now these ten countries have established a technical liaison committee on Nile. Otherwise these countries were not on talking terms and were not exchanging information. But slowly, it has opened their eyes and they truthfully believe that they are all connected with one common goal and that Nile is their link, hence they must start thinking in a common direction. But these are things of patience. In Nile today, if someone asks if there is a conflict, the answer is that there is no conflict, but there are differences and those differences need to be narrowed down. From conflict, we have been able to bring them down to differences. Otherwise, in 1995 when we started there was conflict which would have flared up. Egypt and Ethiopia are predominantly Christian while Sudan is predominantly Muslim but non-Arab and thus there are different political shades which would have inflamed the situation. And when conflict fares up, water remains just the pretext and other issues worsen the conflict. Fortunately, our ten year period shows that we have been able to avert the conflict. Countries like Uganda, Tanzania all have participated and everybody feels that they have gained something from this dialogue. That is the way to go in every basin including Cauvery because even if a tribunal gives an award, it means nothing unless there is a social climate for accepting that award. If there is mudslinging even after the award, it means there is no public acceptability.

Is this your reply to "Is there a way out?" And that is why you are optimistic.
Yes, it has worked there (Nile), it has worked in Bangladesh and Nepal. We took a two-track approach. As a Secretary of Government of India I used go to Bangladesh for formal dialogue. At the same time, our Centre for Policy Research and other such organizations also used to work on these issues. I used to go to these centres, used to discuss these issues. So track II approach involved similar institutions for Nepal and Bangladesh which were apolitical and all these from three countries used to discuss the same issues that we discussed at the government level. That helped to narrow the difference and agreements on Farakka emerged. The major credit goes to this type of approach. So while the government dialogue should be kept going, doors should be kept open. Due to political constraints, narrowing down differences is very difficult if it is just left to only diplomatic efforts.
So I feel that a there is a large room for these type of arrangements everywhere, starting from micro level to reach macro level arrangements. As I said collect information, publicise it and on basis of that, start the dialogue. Then some voluntary organizations should take the lead to bring together various partners. This is track II or whatever you want to call it.
Fortunately, in India we have another success story. Yamuna conflict was there right from 1960. We tried to get the five states – Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh - together for a number of treaties. Shri Chetan Pandit can tell you more as he was the secretary of the Yamuna Board. Without going to any tribunal like Krishna, Godavari, Cauvery etc, Yamuna Board of which these five states are members is working – not 100 per cent successfully, but the process has started since 1994-95. There is much more refinement that needs to be done. One of the weaknesses of the Board is that there is nothing like track II there. Some voluntary organizations must come together, collect data, must start a dialogue while the five state governments are working together. But governments have their limitations. They have to look at their vote bank and its repercussions. So somebody which is not dependent on the vote bank must start propagating better ideas, which is absent in Yamuna. Later you may have a word with Shri Chetan Pandit. But I am optimistic as whereever we have done these experiments, things have worked.

On Water Quality

Water quality seems to be getting worse in several parts of the country. Fluoride contamination seems to be increasing in deeper aquifers. Also ground water is getting polluted from sewage and industrial effluent. Your comments.
For the whole world, water quality is going to be the most difficult challenge that the world will be handling. Initially it was thought that the quantity of water and scarcity of water are the major issues. I do not have any adverse comments on the films that are shown on the availability of water. They are saying that population is increasing and water is less. That is true but the problem will be not be because of the population increase and reduced per capita availability of water but because of the reduced per capita availability of the "USABLE" water, because of the pollution of water. This is going to the crisis world over because of the industrialization, urbanization and oil tanker movements. That is why on the last World Water Day, the issue of sanitation & hygiene was taken up as these are the issues leading to water pollution. If dry garbage in the cities is left as dry garbage, we feel it causes no harm. But no, the rain water percolates through dry garbage, leaches into the ground and pollutes the ground water which gets into the river streams. The greatest cholera outbreak in Delhi was because of this problem.
   So we have to start from the household and a large housewife awareness programme has to be taken up about the solid waste management at home. World wide attention today is on two extremes i.e. our sewage and spillage have to be kept separate as the type of the treatment required, the type of disposal required and type of commercial value required are different. Sewage has a lot of commercial value due to fertilizer potential. E.g. In Japan they are selling urine by collecting it separately. Such new experiments for wastewater management need investments and hence have to have a paying component. This is what is called eco-sanitation.
  So the starting point is domestic and then the government has to take responsibility of handling dry and wet garbage. Unfortunately in India, the concept of bio-medical waste has not received adequate attention. As a result highly toxic unused medicines thrown away and human body-based waste etc are polluting surface and ground water. So the lesson is that anything that pollutes water needs to be taken care of.

Do you think the Extended Producers&apos Responsibility which is very much in vogue in Europe should be thought of so as to reduce the industrial waste. So like milk or cold drink glass bottles were taken by the venders and sent back to the company, shouldn’t companies take responsibility of taking back their product packaging back?
In India, we are still at a primary stage where major polluters unfortunately are not the industries but the municipalities which is evident in Indian data.

But look at rivers like Patalganga or Gujarat rivers like Mahi, Tapi or rivers in Cuddalore Tamil Nadu where industries especially chemical factories have played havoc with the ecology.
Yes, not that industries do not pollute but our major issue today is municipalities and look at Delhi and the way things are put in the open. In Indian context, municipalities were considered as the local governments. Pre-independence, all our efforts were in the national movement and much needed local movement for developing a responsible citizen was totally neglected.

This is as far the urban and industrial pollution is concerned. But then there are problems of fluoride, arsenic etc in ground water.
There are two polluters and the nature is one of them. Nature can be a dominant polluter. Let me give you an example. If you go to Pench project in Nagpur district even in September and October when the fresh rain water is received, you will find water in the reservoir highly polluted. It is a tiger sanctuary and is a very thick forest. Because of the foliage falling in and carried by the gushing water in the reservoir, the water is highly polluted. So nature also needs to be properly handled now. It is wrongly believed that nature is only a purifier. It is indeed a purifier but it is a polluter too in many places like Manipur and many hilly, dense forest areas
That is true for fluoride or calcium carbonate in Akola, Amravati, Daryapur. Gujarat, Rajasthan, MP has fluoride problem. In Bangladesh there is arsenic problem. The groundwater pollution is related to the geological instance. So we need to know the geology of the region eg. which are the primary rocks, what happens when water level fluctuates. When you draw water, aquifers go dry and chemical change takes place. These need to be studied. Earlier hydrology meant only flow of water but now the subject is changing to studying not only the hydraulic flow of water but also the solubility of the water, free molecules in the ground mass that are of relevance for water quality management. That is how now water quality issues are emerging. Cities are expected to fulfill their ethical responsibilities but except Jamshedpur, hardly any city is doing it. They have own treatment plant. Most of the cities are still neglecting that they have to return water to the natural systems in a harmless manner. So much awakening needs to be done…

Again by the voluntary organizations! Like Vanrai in Amravati is doing very good work in Salt tracks. But how much can just voluntary organizations do?
In India voluntary organizations have done well in rural areas with population less than 5000. They have been able to develop common vision, make common efforts. We have not been able to do that in large villages and have totally failed in urban areas. The way the voluntary sector can mobilize can be thought of like in Mumbai a good start has been made through Advanced Locality Management (ALM) systems in Mumbai. Here we need 2500 ALMs and today we have short of 250 ALMs out of which 30-40 are really working well.
Now on the technology side, water quality management technology has grown very well. What is the chemistry of water, how to handle biological organisms, how to handle industrial water etc. The technology is available.

And about the affordability…
The question is affordability also but more importantly cutting the pollution at the source. And that needs awakening. And much more research is required to be done about the outflows of our paper, eg dyestuff industries which are very difficulty to handle. At least today costly solutions are available and what is lacking is financial support and more than that local hygienic lifestyle.

How carbon trading can help these industries to finance such costly effluent treatment projects.
Not in this. Carbon trading can be when somebody puts it all together, generate methane and trade that methane and gas by supplying it to auto industry or coal generating factories. Then it will help, no doubt. But the size of trading will be smaller.

Now about industrial pollution, I have come across local farmers who blame adjacent factories for discharging effluents and polluting their ground water and land while these companies claim they put their effluents through CETP and send residual, dry toxic waste to a scientific land fill.
Now there are two extremes. Telco for example is zero discharge company. And Birla's Nagda factory got Stockholm prize for zero discharge. And they have most polluting polyester plant. So the technology is available but now need is to set up a mechanism. Now this is in a larger context that our industries must learn to work as a part of the society. Till now they were protected by the government. But now government should stop that and industries must have a dialogue with the government and the people. That is the success story of Jamshedpur which looks upon itself as the part of society.

On Large Vs Small Project Controversy

Controversy about the large vs small dams is an imaginary issue because everybody is talking of less water and creating a scare about the less availability of water. These are contradicting things. So if water is less you must store it otherwise it is lost. In the Indian context, unless you hold it in monsoon, it is lost to you. So the size of the dam is not your choice. The size of the river flow will dictate the size of the dam. E.g you can't think of small dams on Brahmputra, Ganga, Godavari..

As I understand the opponents don't say that build small structures on large rivers. They feel that the rain water should be arrested where it falls instead allowing it to run off to the rivers where it will be held in reservoirs. So they say that put small check dams locally on small streams/rivulets and distribute locally instead of allowing it to run to the reservoir and then again take it back through canals from where it has come.
Many people talk about water without studying water. And water needs to be studied in quantitative terms and also in qualitative terms. For the present let us keep quality out. Let them first look at the quantity of water. OK, now if they want to store water in small sizes, how many such and where will they be located, how much land will be submerged. And if it is land like Ujani or Paithan, how much can be stored. The result will be obvious but people are not doing this.
  Now if people want to store water in their house or farm, let them do it. Nothing against that. But then why are people not doing it? Because of the cost! Smaller the size of the storage, higher is the cost. The cost of storage in a dam is Rs 20 per cubic meter, including land, resettlement, including everything. And cost of rainwater stored is Rs 1000 per cubic meter.

May share with you what I studied in Bhavnagar or similar such regions. Now is the era of people's participation. Any development issue, here let us take water, and people have to contribute and participate in the schemes. I visited villages – some have Narmada water pipeline at the village threshold and some have local water resource developed like rejuvenated tanks or new bore wells dug etc. I found whether it is a centralized solution i.e. pipeline or decentralized local water resources, almost 50 per cent of both were non-functional because pipeline burst or laid wrongly or motor burnt down or fell inside the well etc. And people are once again looking to the agency/organization which facilitated these projects to get them out of the problem. So people have not been empowered to be self-reliant and hence still keep leaning on others. And this has nothing to do with small vs. large systems, I feel.
   No, we need to go beyond mere empowerment. As society we are at a stage where we must improve the capabilities of the people. Those capabilities include technology. We have entered willingly or unwillingly a technological age in which we should be able to manage our lift in high rise buildings and our pumps and vehicles. If you do not improve the capabilities of the villagers then centralization takes place. If there is no watch repairer in the village, you have to go to the city to get it repaired and that is how centralization takes place. So one of the thrust area is empowerment and social workers are giving too much importance to empowerment without capability. How will they handle?

On Dam Safety

Dam breaches do not take place on large dams but on small ones. So far fortunately there have not been large dam breaches, not that it cannot happen due to uncertainties. There are two unknown factors. Dams are built to withstand certain intensity of floods. But one cannot predict when and how that flood will exceed the dam's capacity. Such unknown natural factors exist in all such fields like bridge building etc. So, one has to live with the unknown factor. Secondly, earthquakes, which normally does not make dam fall. In fact dam gets strengthened by shaking the way it is built but it can crack. Fortunately, India is one country which has official guidelines for dam safety. And in progressive states, there are dam safety organizations which are mandated to go around the dam once in 2-3 years, inspect them thoroughly and suggest how they can be more stable and more reliable. So we do not want to keep quiet saying Ujani or Paithan dams are safe. They are indeed safe but we must improve on the safety and upgrade it. This is our social vision and in that institutionally we have made very good beginning. The handicap is that upgradation of dam means capital expenditure and separate funds have to be allocated. Looking at Tansa, Vaitaran dams (near Mumbai) which look good, does not mean they always remain in good condition. One day, some unknown factor can damage it. So taking this into account, its betterment should be the objective which is not unfortunately understood in practice. Because of the lack of political awakening, finances for this purpose are not pursued. So upgrading of dam safety is not looked at as it should be. In developing countries, others are waiting in the queue where there are no dams.
Ukai dam (near Surat in Gujarat) is misrepresentation of the fact, it is not at the whim & fancy to open gates. When the flood comes, there is a minute-to-minute guideline as to which gate is to be opened, at what level, how much etc. And then most of the newspaper reports create complete confusion without studying how much rainfall has taken place downstream of the dam and what is its contribution. It is the down stream rains contribution which are unregulated.
  There was no breach of Ukai dam that occurred but the gate was opened. Much of the confusion has been on the sequence and time at which the gates were opened. But they had to be opened to save the dam. India is one country, which is linked by wireless, and we get flood forecast 48 hours in advance. We can calculate how much will be flood and which gate to be opened, when and for how long etc.

Admittedly, there is mismatch between the administration and the irrigation department. Safety of unregulated catchment area is with the revenue department and dam operation is with the irrigation department. There is very little dialogue between the two departments. Revenue department people do not understand say 'Cusec'. So these terms are wrongly interpreted. And this is what exactly happened in Mumbai. Calamity Management Centre had nobody who could understand hydrology and hydrological terms. So these centres should have some technical person to interpret in lay terms. So if irrigation department send warning saying 1 lakh cusec flood is coming, it means nothing to the disaster management person. But say that it means 20 feet of water in the river, then the seriousness will immediately be understood. Today, no such mechanism exists.