Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in India. India faces an increasingly urgent situation with its finite and fragile water resources being stressed and depleted while various sectoral demands are growing rapidly. 'Initiating and Sustaining Water Sector Reforms' offers detailed solutions to this complex and important concern.
This cluster of books presents innovative and nuanced knowledge on water resources, based on detailed case studies from South Asia—India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In providing comprehensive analyses of the existing economic, demographic and ideological contexts in which water policies are framed and implemented, the volumes argue for alternative, informed and integrated approaches towards efficient management and equitable distribution of water. These also explore the globalization of water governance in the region, particularly in relation to new paradigms of neoliberalism, civil society participation, integrated water resource management (IWRM), public–private partnerships, privatization, and gender mainstreaming. These volumes will be indispensable for scholars and students of development studies, environmental studies, natural resource management, governance and public administration, particularly those working on water resources in South Asia. They will also be useful for policymakers and governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Papers presented at the Third International Conference on Rural India : achieving Millennium Development Goals and Grassroots Development, held at Hyderabad during 10-12 November 2005.
Property rights on water, largely a common property resource, are very crucial in inducing collective action for management and conservation. State support to community action, both technical and financial, appears to be the prerequisite to affirmative actions in harnessing and managing water resources at the village level in India. These are two important messages coming out of this research study. It also adds to the evidence that landless labourers and marginal farmers in India depend in a major way on common resources for their traditional livelihood activities and domestic uses. A significant revelation is the emerging undercurrent of competition between big and small farmers over the use of such resources and the apparent exclusion of social minorities, landless, and women in their management. The discussions on water markets and the unique state-specific case studies reflect that 'necessity and scarcity' induce people to organize themselves for creating greater availability of common water resources and sharing the benefits more equitably.
This monograph comprehensively examines water law regulations and reform in the present decade, going beyond a simple analysis of existing water law and regulations to encompass environmental, social, economic, and human rights aspects of water as a natural resource. Using the specific case of India and on the related international law and policy framework that directly influences water regulatory developments in India, this book offers what will be the first and only analysis of water law reforms taking place at the national level in many developing countries in their domestic and international context. On the one hand, international freshwater law remains under-developed and existing legal instruments such as the 1997 UN Convention only address a limited set of relevant issues. Yet, the international law and policy framework concerning freshwater is increasingly important in shaping up law reforms taking place at the national level, in particular in developing countries. Indeed, non-binding resolutions such as the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development (1992) have had an immense influence on water law reforms in most developing countries. This book seeks to conceive of and analyse freshwater regulation in a broader context, and go beyond a literature that either lauds or criticises ongoing water sector reforms to provide an analytical basis for the reforms which all countries will have to adopt in the near or medium-term future.
Small communities violate federal requirements for safe drinking water as much as three times more often than cities. Yet these communities often cannot afford to improve their water service. Safe Water From Every Tap reviews the risks of violating drinking water standards and discusses options for improving water service in small communities. Included are detailed reviews of a wide range of technologies appropriate for treating drinking water in small communities. The book also presents a variety of institutional options for improving the management efficiency and financial stability of water systems.
This handbook focuses on major water policy issues in India, the challenges and the critical measures that need to be addressed. It traces the development of policies in water and their management and has contributions by India's leading water specialists.
Current issues in world agricultural development, and those of tomorrow, are interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, transnational, and global. Contributions derived from a Societies-World Bank symposium address on-farm, institutional, and policy levels of action in the effort to develop global agriculture sustainably. Experts from every continent provide examples of vision and success, including a section on post Green Revolution India, which was derived from an AASIO-Societies symposium.
