By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Dec 13 1998 (IPS)

Local communities in South Asia prefer small water schemes to large dams that uproot people and spawn social and environmental problems.

For two days last week, citizen’s groups from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lankan testified in Colombo before the World Commission on Dams (WCD), set up earlier this year to review the impact of dams around the world.

The Commission has to submit a report with recommendations on internationally acceptable criteria and guidelines for planning, designing, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of dams at the end of its mandated two years, by mid-2000. The 12-member WCD, an independent group, is based in South Africa.

On Friday, the final day of the widely consultative process at the WCD’s first regional hearing, speakers from India and Nepal stressed that small projects keep people in the villages.

“Establishing 2,500 small water structures in India’s Rajasthan state, is a case in point,” said H. Thakkur, researcher at the Centre for Water Policy.t

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