ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter I described the encounter between two bureaucracies, one Indian and the other within the World Bank, and explained how their negotiations for a major programme of urban water governance reform stumbled and was recovered. Some six years after discussions began, these negotiations culminated in the signing of a loan agreement for the KUWASIP. Early diagnostic work had painted a clear picture of the need of reform. Identifying a number of economic and techno-managerial problems with water governance in the state, a number of equally economic and techno-managerial solutions were envisaged and proposed. The identified problems and solutions matched lucidly with the mainstream consensus that had emerged within international policy circles throughout the 1990s on what the characteristics of good water governance should be. But while the problems and solutions were tidily and neatly bound within a technocratic framework of what was wrong and what was needed to fix it, putting Karnataka on the predetermined path of reform would prove far more political.
