ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the legal and theoretical framework for defining the right to water and reviews the nature and severity of the problems. It overviews a set of recommendations for institutional reform and discusses the practicality of those recommendations in relationship to the political factors that have so far prevented the establishment of a more just and sustainable water governance system. Water commodification in the Chapra region has been achieved in a variety of ways, through technocentric development approach, for instance, that removes water from natural watercourses to which people have traditional rights and diverts it into canals where rights must be purchased. The diversion of water away from the Ganges River before it reaches Bangladesh is clearly the most important of all the direct causes of hardship for Chapra residents. Indian Government has followed a bilateral approach in respect to the Farakka Barrage and ignores the importance of China and Nepal from consideration.
