Patna,(BiharTimes): Bihar’s Water Resources Development Minister Vijay Chaudhary on Thursday once again opposed the proposed National Water Policy of the Centre.

Talking to reporters in Patna he said “We steadfastly oppose the Centre’s unilateral bid to impose the proposed National Water Policy on the states in violation of the federal structure and a constitutional provision under, which precious natural resource is a state subject.”

He described the Centre’s policy to treat water as a national resource as intolerant and questioned its wisdom to unilaterally decide to nationalise the resource at a time when there was no such legislation in place for regulating the use of other resources in the country.

He asked as to why should the interests of states like Bihar suffer simply because it has abundance of water? Water is not the sole national resource in the country. If Bihar has water, then other states too have coast, port, coal, gold, diamond and other resources. The Centre should apply the same yardsticks to regulate use of these resources too and not regulate water in isolation by framing the policy.

Chaudhary said he had raised objections at the last meeting of the National Water Resources Council in December and would place them when the next meeting takes place.

It needs to be recalled that the policy is being worked out by National Water Resource Council headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It had adopted the National Water Policy (2012) following the consensus during its sixth meeting in New Delhi under the chairmanship of Prime Minister.

Bihar is not alone in opposing the proposed water policy. Punjab and Odisha too have disapproved of it.