About the Project:

The project titled 'A Programme On Developing Practicable Scientific Approaches On Water Governance And Livelihoods And On Contributing To Policy Dialogue On Basin Issues' is being implemented by Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development, New Delhi and is funded by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.

Operations under this project are located in six sub-basins in three states of India namely Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. The Water Governance Project (WGP) seeks to look at water as an integrated concept following the Integrated Water Resources Management approach while gaining an understanding of how water structures and communities impact governance of the resource in accordance with initiatives by the state and policy makers.

This project has taken a multi-layered approach in order to capture all stakeholders, civil society and influence policy at all levels thus is working at the national, state and sub-basin level simultaneously.

Having recognised that meeting of water needs for productive and consumptive requirements of different sections of society has always been a complex task involving contentious decisions and infrastructure building is just one aspect of water provisioning, major challenges confronting water administration are efficient operation, timely maintenance, monitoring and upkeep of the source and equitable distribution. The performance on these fronts has been far from satisfactory. The degeneration is limited not only to irrigation and water supply systems under government sector but also to traditional community managed surface irrigation and the self-provisioning groundwater systems. The situation demands looking at the way water and water administration are conceived by different set of users and also the way water administrators view themselves, water and its users.

Water governance project (WGP) was conceived with a view to look at water in an integrated manner. Various programmes on water harnessing and management are being implemented for a number of years by both government and non-government agencies. Water sector restructuring projects are being implemented in different States. Attempts are being made to hand over irrigation systems to farmers' organizations. Basin management and Integrated Water Resource Management are at the conceptual stage. Water Regulatory Authorities are being constituted but questions are being raised as to their necessity and status. In most cases, integration is thought of either at the village or State level. For instance in the case of the irrigation management transfer to farmers, focus is limited to strengthening water users associations at the field offtake level even when the problem lies at the higher operational level. For proper democratic and sustainable water governance there is a need to involve different sections of society at multiple levels. In the absence of any platform at intermediate level to take up water governance issues the transfer of any policy into practice becomes a difficult proposition.

As water is a basic life-support resource, its effective governance unlike that of other commodity producing institutions involves understanding of the resource, existing social structure and the human practices. How these actors involved impact the use, distribution of the resource and ultimately livelihoods is what is being closely researched in the WGP project areas.