ABSTRACT

When it comes to water, we flush and forget. We use, abuse and almost never recycle.

Water sector in India, since the 1990s, has seen some new ideas formalised legally and institutionally, while others are still emerging and evolving. Confronting the reality of current water management strategies, this volume discusses the state of the Indian water sector to uncover solutions that can address the imminent water crises.

This book:

  • Analyses the growing water insecurity, increase in demand, inefficiency in water use, and growing inequalities in accessing clean water;
  • Sheds light on water footprint in agricultural, industrial and urban use, pressures on river basin management, depleting groundwater resources, patterns of droughts and floods, watershed based development and waste water and sanitation management;
  • Examines water conflicts, lack of participatory governance mechanisms, and suggests an alternative framework for water regulation and conflict transformation;
  • Highlights the relationship between gender discourse and water governance;
  • Presents an alternative agenda for water sector reforms.

This volume, with hopes for a more water secure future, will interest scholars and researchers of development studies, environment studies, public policy, political studies, political sociology, and, NGOs, media and think tanks working in this area.

chapter 1|22 pages

Introduction India’s water futures

Emergent ideas and pathways

chapter 2|13 pages

Water resource development in India

Achievements, shortcomings and remedial measures

chapter 3|21 pages

Managing river basins

Re-examining the biophysical basis

chapter 4|22 pages

Changing land use, agrarian context and rural transformation

Implications for watershed development

chapter 5|3 pages

Environmental flows in the Indian context

Prospects and challenges

chapter 6|22 pages

Changing water use practices of the urban middle class in India

Insights from Metropolitan Calcutta

chapter 7|30 pages

The centralized approach to wastewater management and implications for sanitation governance

An analysis of the intent and practice of the national urban sanitation policy in India

chapter 8|29 pages

Canal irrigation performance and impacts

Applying contingency theory to irrigation management in India

chapter 9|29 pages

Out of balance

Agricultural growth and groundwater depletion in two backward states of India

chapter 10|28 pages

Reducing water for agriculture for improving productivity

Adapting and up-scaling innovative approaches

chapter 11|18 pages

Gender and water

Why we need alternatives to alternative discourses

chapter 12|14 pages

Inter-state water conflicts and linguistic identity in India

The case of the Cauvery

chapter 13|20 pages

Dams and environmental clearances

Learnings and way forward

chapter 14|21 pages

Rationale for independent regulatory agency for water in India

Reconceptualizing credible commitment

chapter 15|22 pages

Reforming India’s water sector

Which way forward?