Who is competent to legislate on water?
Under the seventh schedule to the constitution, which demarcates the legislative competence of the Union and the States, the entries relevant to water are Entry 56 of central list and Entry 17 of state list. While the former provides that the center has the right to legislate on ‘regulation and development of inter- State rivers and river valleys to the extent to which such regulation and development under the control of the Union is declared by Parliament by law to be expedient in the public interest’, the latter provides that state has the competence to legislate on ‘water, that is to say, water supplies, irrigation and canals, drainage and embankments, water storage and water power subject to the provisions of entry 56 of List I’.
