Girish Chadha - Water Governance and Management in India: Issues and Perspectives

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Each book of this multidisciplinary series covers a critical or emerging water issue. Authors and contributors are leading experts of international repute. The readers of the series will be professionals from different disciplines and development sectors from different parts of the world. They will include civil engineers, economists, geographers, geoscientists, sociologists, lawyers, environmental scientists and biologists. The books will be of direct interest to universities, research institutions, private and public sector institutions, international organisations and NGOs. In addition, all the books will be standard reference books for the water and the associated resource sectors.

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The editors are happy to continue the dialogue that was started with the first volume of the book. It has indeed been an enriching experience in expanding the coverage on the issue of water governance and management in the second volume. The two volumes together present a rainbow of aspects that influence water resources development, governance and its management. We have been fortunate enough to have yet another set of enlightened authors to do justice to the additional aspects covered in the second volume.

The authors touch upon several administrative, planning, environmental and financial aspects of water governance in the seven chapters, often highlighting specific areas that require attention.

In the first chapter, Himanshu Kulkarni et al. take up the issue of community-based groundwater management model, suggesting that participation of people should remain the backbone in this pursuit.

Indias groundwater usage is the largest in the world. Nearly, all sectors, especially rural domestic water and water in agriculture, have large-scale dependencies on groundwater resources. Groundwater exploitation, without due consideration to the concept of aquifers as common pool resources, has led to the dual problem of groundwater depletion and contamination, besides depletion in river flows. Competition over groundwater resources has slowly emerged as a complex problem across Indias diverse aquifer typology, sometimes leading to conflict. The rise in the number of wells across the small land holdings in India has meant that groundwater extraction occurs at high granularity, making it difficult for large-scale data and information to capture the reality of problems of the ground.

The authors feel that the existing groundwater governance mechanisms, mainly in the form of institutional frameworks including legislation, are not robust enough. These mechanisms, they feel, limit the impacts of processes such as participatory groundwater management. Given the enormity of the problem in India, and the size of the country too, the authors argue that the one-size-fits-all approach of groundwater management and governance would become irrelevant under the countrys aquifer and socio-economic diversity.

Rather than making governance the sole responsibility of governments, a carefully designed architecture of partnerships should be crafted, where all primary stakeholders get deeply involved in the collective endeavour of participatory water governance. In the country, participatory management of water resources has been attempted, often with resounding success, in small measures.

Framing groundwater governance as the governance of aquifers is also important so as to instil confidence and belief in managing groundwater resources as common pool resources. In doing so, groundwater management must become inclusive of the need to shift the focus of plans and practices from sources of groundwater to the resource. Creating a proactive policy environment that embraces community participation in developing the understanding on groundwater and generating knowledge on aquifers, communities and ecosystems is most important. Such an environment will enable the agencies of governance such as Panchayati Raj Institutions to take improved decisions and undertake actions that will lead to sustainable, efficient and equitable usage of groundwater.

In the second chapter, Singh and Mahanta bring out the fact about 30% of Indias population lives in cities and urban areas that are expected to double in population by 2050. Currently, five of the worlds 20 largest cities under water stress are in India, with Delhi being second on the list, they point out, adding that with a growing economy and fast changing lifestyles, the pressure on already strained water resources is escalating. Urban hubs are likely to witness severe water shortages in the future, which could risk urban growth in India and reduce quality of life for urban citizens.