Top planners of the country have asserted that pricing and rationing are the most important tools to make optimal use of the most precious natural resource - water - and achieve sustainable development even though states, bound by political compulsions and fiercely protective of control over water management, may never agree to it. Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia says pricing of water and rationing by regulation are the most effective tools to stop the gross misuse of water resources, even though they are very difficult decisions. Referring to negative effects of the present system of farming and related activities in rural areas on the GDP, he said: “If I am a farmer with a powerful pump, I will be able to extract a lot of water but my additional production (of grain) will be at the cost of others. Use the price system so that people do not misuse, but it is very difficult. When you have a water regulatory authority it will ensure that you don’t have a situation where most of the water is used by a few individuals or in a small portion of land,” he said at the release of a Greening Rural Development in India report. In India, where water is a state subject and therefore controlled by the respective state governments, it is an issue with deep political and sociological undertones. Free power and water are doles given by states, including Punjab and Haryana, and any attempt by the Centre to regulate water is fought tooth and nail. Recently at the National Water Resources Council, most states, including Punjab, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, thwarted the Centre’s attempt to put in place an over-arching framework on water laws and rejected all attempts for establishment of a water tariff system and regulatory authority. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, for instance, expressed strong reservations over the establishment of a water tariff system, fixation of criteria for water charges, statutory empowerment of water users associations, pricing of electricity and establishment of a Water Regulatory Authority as envisaged under the draft. The long-awaited draft National Water Policy, 2012, was finally accepted with the PM’s assurance to uphold states’ Constitutional rights over water management.