Charging farmers for ground water use

The Planning Commission’s report on Tuesday pointed that farmers should be charged for using power to pump ground water ignoring increasing industrial usage of water. “Groundwater Management and Ownership” authored by Kirit Parikh and others has made a case for distributing power entitlement to farmers for a certain amount and charging them for the power used in order to reduce ground water exploitation. This report can seriously dent congress’s “aam aadmi” image and UPA government may face tough times ahead explaining it. Parikh however defended the report. He said that MNCs like beverage and mineral water companies were not exploiting the ground water resource and the bulk was used by farm sector, however his statements and reports were hypothetical because he didn’t have any statistics on industrial exploitation of ground water. UPA may face the heat soon and Parikh could face trouble because he is suggesting actions to be taken by the federal government, without having proper data of the every thing that constitutes his report. The question remains how this proposal will support the idea of “Bharat Nirman”?