ABSTRACT
GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA: WHAT ROLE FOR THE MARKET? R.W. PALMER-JONES School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia.
Abstract Until recently public policy towards groundwater exploitation in South Asia involved state control of technology and institutions, siting and abstraction. Public or co operative ownership and management of Deep Tubewells (DTW) was favoured; when DTW under-performed technical and institutional fixes were promoted, but without success. Privately owned shallow tubewells (STW) came to play the major role in groundwater exploitation., and groundwater came to be distributed in what are called water markets. Recent policy prescriptions advocate privatisation of groundwater partly to facilitate these markets. However water per se is not being traded in these markets, which are better understood as irrigation services markets. In many areas these markets are associated with severe environmental problems. Three broad agrohydrological regions pose different groundwater management and policy problems. North-West South Asia (both Punjabs) has groundwater quality problems related to salinity which will require careful regulation and manipulation of private groundwater abstraction. Peninsular South Asia and Western India face extreme groundwater scarcity, and pervasive over-pumping, with saline intrusion and pollution problems in some locations, which again will need strong regulation. Eastern India has abundant groundwater and relatively isolated quality problems, where exploitation of groundwater should largely be left to the market.
