ABSTRACT
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is increasingly gaining currency in the contemporary discourse on water. The discourse is influenced mainly by the two popular perspectives on water scarcity and crisis management. According to them, pathways to improved water governance through IWRM are treating water as an economic good, declaring water as a state property and creating property rights in water, and having appropriate water policies and laws in place. In spite of being one of the most important policy initiatives in the recent past, Watershed Development Program (WDP) in South Asia have remained isolated from the mainstream thinking on water resource management in the country. It is imperative that different perspectives are projected within the boundary concept of IWRM. The mainstream IWRM thinking looks at IWRM as one of the means to move away from the earlier sub-sector-based approach to a more holistic or integrated approach.
