This book reviews and analyzes emerging challenges in water policy governance and institutions
in India. Recent times have seen the contours of water policy shaped by new discourses and
narratives there has been a pluralization of the state and a changing balance of power among
the actors who influence the formulation of water policy. Discourses on gender mainstreaming
and Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) are influential though they have often
remained rhetorical and difficult to put into practice. Debate over property rights reform and
inter-linking of rivers has been polarized. At the same time there has been a rising
disenchantment with policy initiatives in participatory irrigation management cleaning up of
water bodies and pollution control. Fast depletion of groundwater resources and the importance
of adopting new irrigation methods are getting increased focus in the recent policy
dialogue.The contributors review current debate on these and othersubjects shaping the
governance of water resources and take stock of new policy developments. The book examines the
experience of policy implementation and shows where important weaknesses still lie. The
authors present a roadmap for the future and discuss the potential of alternative approaches
for tackling emerging challenges. A case is made for greater emphasis on a discursive analysis
of water policy to examine underlying policy processes.The contributors observe that the
ongoing democratization of water governance coupled with the multiplication of stresses on
water will create a more visible demand for platforms for negotiation conflict resolution and
dialogue across different categories of users and uses. Finally the authors propose that
future research should challenge implicit biases in water resources planning and address
imbalances in the allocation of water from the perspectives of both equity and sustainability.
