river water disputes and their resolution. Poor indicators of national water resources
governance do not inspire confidence about its long-term security.
The chapter posits that this is an outcome of the federal constituents—the states
and the Union Territories—assuming exclusive powers over water governance.
They pursue inward and territorialized strategies for water resources management.
This, at times, leads to non-optimal solutions and stresses on the internal relations
amongst the federal constituents. The Centre has to play an anchoring role and work
with states towards pursuing these goals.
The chapter takes a closer look at the historical changes in budgetary allocations
of the Centre and select states for water resources governance and highlights the
issues of consistency in funding and coordinating mechanisms required for
achieving an optimal solution. The structural and institutional elements of federal
water governance have not received adequate attention. The existing provisions are
not only under-nurtured, but also inadequate to pursue India’s development goals
and address the new and emerging challenges of water governance towards
long-term water security and sustainability goals.
The authors insist that it is imperative to build a 'new federal consensus' about
Centre-states’ roles in water governance. There is a need to engage in a political
process to elevate the debate of federal water governance to the goals of addressing
the ‘whole’ and emphasize partnership building between Centre-states for the
purpose. At the same time, the chapter calls for strengthening the Centre’s by
provision of additional set of political and institutional processes.
Through the chapters, the multi-dimensionality of water management and
development sector as also uni-dimensionality of the individual stakeholders pertaining to one field comes through. This is where participative management with an
overarching outlook comes in. India’s Water Policy (2012) did recognize this issue
by declaring water a common pool resource.
As water availability and its management spans over a large set of sectors, each
requiring a special branch of knowledge, coordination between them is a challenging task. However, we all have to live in a collective society where the right of
existence has been made equal. While advocating the ideal regime for a specific
sector, one should not lose sight of other sectors that may also be competing for the
same ideal. Each sector may require making sacrifices to allow others also to have
the same opportunity.
The development process is always a transformative one. Development consumes or deploys a set of resources and produces the outputs in form of products,
which are further traded or consumed for livelihood sustenance or economic
prosperity. The dialogue, therefore, happens between the static model of no change
from what is given by nature to a dynamic model where the interventions to meet
demands may make changes to the natural regimes.
In case of water, this has been happening since the dawn of human civilization.
Development so far has been on the basis of deployment of water as a resource to
produce food, fibre, energy, transportation, recreation and also as a medium to
Introduction
ix
governance do not inspire confidence about its long-term security.
The chapter posits that this is an outcome of the federal constituents—the states
and the Union Territories—assuming exclusive powers over water governance.
They pursue inward and territorialized strategies for water resources management.
This, at times, leads to non-optimal solutions and stresses on the internal relations
amongst the federal constituents. The Centre has to play an anchoring role and work
with states towards pursuing these goals.
The chapter takes a closer look at the historical changes in budgetary allocations
of the Centre and select states for water resources governance and highlights the
issues of consistency in funding and coordinating mechanisms required for
achieving an optimal solution. The structural and institutional elements of federal
water governance have not received adequate attention. The existing provisions are
not only under-nurtured, but also inadequate to pursue India’s development goals
and address the new and emerging challenges of water governance towards
long-term water security and sustainability goals.
The authors insist that it is imperative to build a 'new federal consensus' about
Centre-states’ roles in water governance. There is a need to engage in a political
process to elevate the debate of federal water governance to the goals of addressing
the ‘whole’ and emphasize partnership building between Centre-states for the
purpose. At the same time, the chapter calls for strengthening the Centre’s by
provision of additional set of political and institutional processes.
Through the chapters, the multi-dimensionality of water management and
development sector as also uni-dimensionality of the individual stakeholders pertaining to one field comes through. This is where participative management with an
overarching outlook comes in. India’s Water Policy (2012) did recognize this issue
by declaring water a common pool resource.
As water availability and its management spans over a large set of sectors, each
requiring a special branch of knowledge, coordination between them is a challenging task. However, we all have to live in a collective society where the right of
existence has been made equal. While advocating the ideal regime for a specific
sector, one should not lose sight of other sectors that may also be competing for the
same ideal. Each sector may require making sacrifices to allow others also to have
the same opportunity.
The development process is always a transformative one. Development consumes or deploys a set of resources and produces the outputs in form of products,
which are further traded or consumed for livelihood sustenance or economic
prosperity. The dialogue, therefore, happens between the static model of no change
from what is given by nature to a dynamic model where the interventions to meet
demands may make changes to the natural regimes.
In case of water, this has been happening since the dawn of human civilization.
Development so far has been on the basis of deployment of water as a resource to
produce food, fibre, energy, transportation, recreation and also as a medium to
Introduction
ix