Indian Water Policy at the Crossroads: Resources, Technology and Reforms Global Issues in Water Policy
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Global Issues in Water Policy 16 Vishal Narain Annasamy Narayanamoorthy Editors Indian Water Policy at the Crossroads: Resources, Technology and Reforms Global Issues in Water Policy Volume 16 Editor-in-chief Ariel Dinar Department of Environmental Sciences , University of California , Riverside , California , USA Series editors José Albiac-Murillo , Zaragoza , Spain Stefano Farolfi , CIRAD UMR G-EAU , Montpellier , France Rathinasamy Maria Saleth , Chennai , India More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8877 Vishal Narain • Annasamy Narayanamoorthy Editors Indian Water Policy at the Crossroads: Resources, Technology and Reforms Editors Vishal Narain Annasamy Narayanamoorthy Public Policy and Governance Economics and Rural Development Management Development Institute Alagappa University Gurgaon , India Karaikudi , Tamil Nadu , India ISSN 2211-0631 ISSN 2211-0658 (electronic) Global Issues in Water Policy ISBN 978-3-319-25182-0 ISBN 978-3-319-25184-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-25184-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015957193 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Contents 1 Introduction: Towards a Discursive Analysis of Indian Water Policy ............................................................................ 1 Vishal Narain 2 The Precept and Practice of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in India............................................ 15 Tushaar Shah and Barbara van Koppen 3 Groundwater Depletion in India: Potential of Alternative Approaches and Policy Instruments ...................................................... 35 Nitin Bassi 4 Drinking Water Supply in India: Context and Prospects ................... 49 Aidan A. Cronin , Anjal Prakash , Praveena Sridhar , and Sue Coates 5 Gender and Water in India: A Review .................................................. 73 Seema Kulkarni 6 Independent Regulatory Agencies in Water Sector in India: Debate and Discourse .................................................. 93 Sachin Warghade 7 River Linking Project: A Solution or Problem to India’s Water Woes? ........................................................................... 109 Tushaar Shah and Upali A. Amarasinghe 8 Water Pollution: Extent, Impact, and Abatement ............................... 131 Prakash Nelliyat 9 Regulatory Instruments and Demand Management of Water: Potential and Prospects ......................................................... 153 V. Ratna Reddy v vi Contents 10 Water Rights and Entitlements in India ............................................... 179 Rathinasamy Maria Saleth 11 Water Saving Technology in India: Adoption and Impacts ................ 209 A. Narayanamoorthy Contributors Upali A. Amarasinghe International Water Management Institute , Hyderabad , India Nitin Bassi Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy (IRAP) , Rohini, New Delhi , India Sue Coates UNICEF Indonesia , World trade Centre , Jakarta , Indonesia Aidan A. Cronin UNICEF Indonesia , World trade Centre , Jakarta , Indonesia Barbara van Koppen Principal Researcher Poverty, Gender and Water , International Water Management Institute , Silverton , South Africa Seema Kulkarni Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) , Pashan, Pune , India Vishal Narain Public Policy and Governance , Management Development Institute , Gurgaon , India A. Narayanamoorthy Department of Economics and Rural Development , Alagappa University , Karaikudi , Tamil Nadu , India Prakash Nelliyat Centre for Water Resources , Anna University , Chennai , India Anjal Prakash International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development , Kathmandu , Nepal V. Ratna Reddy Livelihoods and Natural Resource Management Institute , Hyderabad , India Rathinasamy Maria Saleth Madras School of Economics , Chennai , India vii viii Contributors Tushaar Shah IWMI-India Water Policy Program , International Water Management Institute , Anand , Gujarat , India Praveena Sridhar Indian Water Sector , Mumbai , India Sachin Warghade Tata Institute of Social Sciences , Deonar, Mumbai , India Chapter 1 Introduction: Towards a Discursive Analysis of Indian Water Policy Vishal Narain Abstract This chapter presents an overview of the chief contributions of the chap- ters presented in this book. Over the years, Indian water policy has evolved to take cognisance of new and emerging pressures on water resources. Both local and global actors have had a role to play in this. International discourses of integrated water resource management, gender, neo-liberalism and decentralization have had a bearing on how water resource policies have been framed and water issues prob- lematized. While emerging research has been able to throw some light on the nature of policy processes, the paper makes a more deliberate case for a discursive analysis of public policy to pave the way to understanding the nature and direction of water reforms in the country. Keywords Public policy • Governance • Reforms • Narratives • Discourses This book is a collection of chapters that examine critical issues and debates sur- rounding the governance and management of water resources in India. Recent decades have seen several paradigmatic shifts in the management and governance of water resources in the country. Focus has shifted from predominantly technical and hydrological issues to emphasise the social, economic and managerial. New para- digms such as Integrated Water Resource Management have come to infl uence how water is viewed as a resource with several dimensions, even as concerns are voiced over the relevance of this paradigm and its operationalization in Indian – and South Asian – contexts. Gender mainstreaming has acquired new emphases, though the gap between rhetoric and practice has tended to persist. The debates on issues of water rights, equity and justice have acquired new dimensions; the imperatives to address these issues seem to have become stronger. Increasingly, water scholars V. Narain (*) Public Policy and Governance , Management Development Institute , Gurgaon 122001 , India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1 V. Narain, A. Narayanamoorthy (eds.), Indian Water Policy at the Crossroads: Resources, Technology and Reforms, Global Issues in Water Policy 16, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-25184-4_1 2 V. Na rain have sought to explore the relationships between the technological, hydrological and social dimensions of water management. 1 The genesis of new paradigms infl uencing water resource policy and governance is a process in which both global and local actors have had a role to play (Narain et al. 2014 ; Narayanan et al. 2014 ). Donors and funders have played a critical role in infl uencing the nature and direction of what are popularly called “water reforms”. They have played a key role in propagating new discourses around water resource management. A case in point is the neo-liberal discourse propagated by the World Bank and other international agencies that paved way for a greater role for the free market in the allocation of water resources. The neo-liberal discourse was founded on the narrative of the weak and ineffi cient state, and the free market was seen as a natural and obvious alternative. While the state was seen as playing a key role in the allocation and management of water resources in the country till the late 1980s, the neo-liberal discourse paved the way for a greater role for the free market in the period after that. Operationally, this created space for new actors in the governance of water resources. This took the form of outright privatization, for instance, and spawned debates regarding its equity and justice dimensions (Urs and Whittel 2009 ). Autonomous forms of water markets have nevertheless functioned for sev- eral decades in the form of water tankers meeting the demand – supply gap for drinking water in cities, as well as groundwater markets meeting the needs of small- holder irrigators. Both these forms of markets have, however, functioned outside any regulatory environment, raising questions about their equity, effi ciency and sus- tainability implications (Shah 1993 ; Dubaash 2002 ; Prakash 2005 ). Along the continuum of state and market based allocation of water,