The Twelfth Plan proposals for a new approach to the water resources management as put forward in the article by Mihir Shah (EPW, 19 January 2013) are a bold recognition of the serious problems in the area. But some of the author’s ideas are less than convincing and the entire set of physical interventions that has been recommended seems to refl ect a worryingly simplistic understanding of the realities of hydrology and hydrogeology. A comment and a response.