Call for papers for special issue of SAWAS (South Asian Water Studies)
Changing water governance in India: taking the longer view
Guest editors:
P.P. Mollinga (ZEF, Bonn) and S.P. Tucker (Govt. of Andhra Pradesh)
Background
The European Commission funded research project called STRIVER has over the past three years (July 2006 – June 2009) looked at issues of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and water governance in the Tungabhadra sub-basin of the Krishna basin. On June 30, 2009, a seminar-workshop was held in Hyderabad discussing some of the findings of that research and other South Indian experience. Instead of focusing on the immediately pressing issues of today, the seminar-workshop deliberated on the longer-term scenario and trends in water governance in the present context of a fast-growing economy and globalisation. The following papers were presented.
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- IWRM in the upper-Tungabhadra basin: tanks and watershed management (Suhas Paranjape, Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management, SOPPECOM, Pune)
- IWRM in the lower Tungabhadra basin: canal irrigation and rainfed agriculture (Peter Mollinga and Rahul Pillai, Center for Development Research, ZEF, Bonn, and R. Doraiswamy, Jalaspandana, Bangalore)
- The appropriateness of the Water Disputes Tribunal framework: the case of Cauvery (Narendar Pani, National Institute of Advanced Studies, NIAS, Bangalore)
- Regulatory authorities for water resources: the case of Maharashtra (Subodh Wagle, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, TISS, Mumbai and Sachin Warghade, Prayas, Pune)
- Water sector reform in South India: the case of Andhra Pradesh (Sanjay Gupta, Irrigation & Command Area Development, I&CAD, Andhra Pradesh)
Following the discussion at the workshop-seminar a broader call for papers is released, inviting papers taking a longer view on water governance and management (reform) in India. The generic nature of the questions addressed will also make this discussion relevant for water resources governance in other South Asian countries.
Call for papers
The aim of the call for papers is to compose a special issue or special section on longer-term perspectives on water governance and management (reform) in India. We are aiming for 8-10 papers, but as SAWAS is an e-journal, more papers can be included. The papers should not exceed 5000 words (including references and footnotes). We are inviting original, well argued and accessibly written analyses of water sector reform experiences, assessments of future developments, discussion of dilemmas and contradictions, accounts of policy processes and policy instruments, etc.
The following gives an impression of the thematic aimed at, but authors are encouraged to choose their own angle and emphasis.
Integration by default: a changing context for water resources governance and management
The water resources governance and management scenario in India is undergoing structural change for at least three reasons. First, many basins are closing, that is, in the case of surface water, allocation equals or exceeds available water; in case of groundwater, extraction exceeds recharge. This means that changing water use is increasingly a process with zero-sum game features. This makes the allocation of water in space, in time, and over different sectors and social groups increasingly interlinked and complex. Second, India is changing through rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, giving rise to new priorities and demands in water use, and a changing economic and political role of agricultural water use. Third, though water resources management is inherently a localised phenomenon, increasingly, global ideas and concerns are entering Indian water policy and politics. Global discourses on the role of the market in water resources management, the need for ‘integration’ of uses and users, and notions of climate change and environmental flow are finding their way in, resonating with, or being opposed by different actors in the Indian water economy and polity. These three changes may produce an increasing number of water conflicts through which (new) arrangements will be negotiated. They also produce ‘integration by default’, different water uses, and users getting evermore connected, even if that is in an unplanned manner. The question is whether present policy responses to this changing context for water governance and management are adequate.
Changing governance arrangements: experiences with reform
The present situation exhibits different approaches to water sector reform in different Indian States, which could be regarded as different ‘experiments’ dealing with the new demands on water resources management. Maharashtra has chosen the road of establishing a regulatory authority for water, taking energy sector reforms as an example. The MWRRA framework (Maharashtra Water Resources Regulation Authority) is now being taken over by several Indian states. Other South Indian states are taking different routes. Andhra Pradesh is continuing the irrigation/water sector reform started in the late 1990s with the establishment of Project Committees for canal irrigation, potentially creating an important new governance level for farmer irrigation management, and it is changing the professional make-up of the irrigation bureaucracy through an emphasis on multidisciplinary teams. In Karnataka, a different process of federation of Water Users Association is ongoing. The role of development funding agencies in these processes varies. Privatisation of water resources management has been talked about a lot, but there is little far-reaching practice as yet. The problem of regulating groundwater extraction remains unsolved. What is the learning that can be drawn from such processes of change and reform for the next, say, 20 years? Does the change in water governance and management have to be ‘big bang’ or ‘step by step’, and what are the eventual ‘tipping points’?
The (ir)relevance of the Water Disputes Tribunal framework
An important question to ask is whether the arrangements for inter-state water allocation created in the 1950s through the Water Disputes Act suffice under the newly emerging conditions. Reaching for an agreement between and among States seems to be increasingly problematic, and the process seems to be increasingly prone to politicisation. What are the problems with the present legalistic and centralised framework that almost exclusively focuses on surface water? Does the agenda of the Tribunals need to be broadened, does the process need to be made more inclusive and/or decentralised, or will this only make matters more complicated? Does the very process of adjudication/negotiation need a review? Do we have the appropriate (hydrological) modelling tools for constructively negotiating basin-level water issues?
Alternative water resources management paradigms
What overall concept or framework is required for thinking about a new water resources paradigm for the future? Can we rethink the multifunctionality of tanks and adapt it to the present situation, or is the decline of collectively managed tanks and the rise of individualised water control inevitable? Can tanks be usefully integrated into canal water supply systems? Are the distinctions between (canal, tank, and well) irrigated agriculture, rainfed agriculture, and watershed development based agriculture artificial, and are they just different ways of making agriculture production and the livelihoods based on them more robust and sustainable through using different forms of ‘applied water’? Should we rethink the notion of ‘storage’? Should we more seriously look beyond water and beyond the catchment? Are water conflicts more easily solved when the ‘basket’ of options for livelihoods and negotiation increase? Should we be looking at ‘problemsheds’ rather than ‘watersheds’, that is, include all groups involved in a water resources management issue even when they are based outside the catchment or basin? Through what mechanisms can the many new ideas and concepts be tested and internalised into ‘business as usual’ water resources management and governance? What are the ‘clearing houses’ and ‘internalisation points’ for such a process of adaptation and change?
The water resources knowledge system
What demands do the changes in water resources governance and management that are on the horizon imply for the water resources knowledge system? How do we make serious work of the need for a broader based professionalism in the water sector, starting from ideas of multi- and interdisciplinarity? Can this provide the necessary leadership for a ‘paradigm change’ in the water sector? How can more productive linkages be built between research and policy & practice – in a feasible, rather than utopian scenario? How will the water sector enter the era of the knowledge society?
Submission of papers
Papers are to be submitted to Dr Daphne Gondhalekhar at ZEF, Bonn (daphneg@mit.edu) not later than September 30, 2009. The target is papers of maximum 5000 words. Papers will be peer reviewed. Accepted (and eventually revised) papers will be published in a forthcoming issue of SAWAS (South Asian Water Studies).
The Center for Development Research (ZEF)
SaciWATERs
