He said that governments should take an active interest in people’s movements, because real change can be achieved only by involving people at the grassroots level. The success at Jhabua, one of the backward districts of Madhya Pradesh, was a result of a project being started at the village level. "When people are involved, there can be no mistake, but when the project officer is involved in any project, there are chances the project will not be a success," he said.

On this occasion Digvijay Singh released the CSE book, "Boondon ke Sanskriti" which is a Hindi translation of "Dying Wisdom" on the traditional water harvesting systems in India. Informed Sunita Narain, deputy director,CSE, that the inspiration to make this book available in Hindi came from Shri Digvijai Singh himself as he showed interest in getting this book distributed among 5000 watershed committees in Madhya Pradesh to sensitise them to the issue.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker and Congress MP, P A Sangma said that water has, unfortunately, become a political issue today. He called upon all politicians to come together and reach a national consensus on the question of water. "They must treat water as a human need and not as a political gain," he said. He congratulated the participants of the conference on their ideas to harvest water. "Now, we must explore ways to make these ideas into people’s movements." He called upon Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to create awareness on this issue.

Speaking on the occasion Mani Shankar Aiyer, former member of Parliament, stressed the importance of Panchayati Raj Institutions in making people’s movements a success. There is a need of "conscienciation" among the people. "The government works at the macrocosm level and the ngos at the microcosm level. Both of them have to come together to spread the message to the villages." If funds from the Union government for various projects is given directly to panchayats or the nagarpalikas, there will be less corruption, he said.

As a prelude to his public lecture, social activist Anna Hazare called upon the government, ngos and social activists to start a people’s movement against corruption. "Gandhiji emphasised the centrality of villages. But we seem to be forgetting this and are concentrating on the urban areas. We are spending crores to build dams. The state of the poor people in India is the same as it was 40 years ago," he said.

CSE director Anil Agarwal said the there has to be a social and political commitment to the question of water. He said politicians do not venture into the basic issues like water because these programmes do not bring votes.