For decades after independence, Indian planning ignored the need for sustainability and equity in water resource development and management. There was just one way forward, that of harnessing the bounty in our rivers and below the ground, and this strategy had almost completely unquestioned acceptance. It was only in the 1990s that serious questions began to be raised on the wisdom of our understanding and approach to rivers. Around the same time, the sustainability of our strategy of groundwater development under the Green Revolution also began to be interrogated.

Mihir Shah is Secretary, Samaj Pragati Sahayog.

P. S. Vijayshankar is Director, Research, Samaj Pragati Sahayog.

List of Figures
List of Tables

Introduction
Mihir Shah and P. S. Vijayshankar

Section I  Water Resources Development and Management

1. Large Dams

1. Narmada Project: The Case Against and an Alternative Perspective

Baba Amte

1. Alternative Restructuring of the Sardar Sarovar: Breaking the Deadlock

Suhas Paranjape and K.J. Joy

1. Institutional Vacuum in Sardar Sarovar Project: Framing ‘Rules-of-the-Game’

Jayesh Talati and Tushaar Shah

1. Irrigation Privatisation in India: Options, Issues and Experience

R. Maria Saleth

1. Institutional Reforms in Canal Irrigation System: Lessons from Chhattisgarh

      Dinesh K. Marothia

1. Groundwater

1. Drawing Down the Buffer: Science and Politics of Groundwater Management in India

      Marcus Moench

1. Ecologically and Socially Embedded Exchange: ‘Gujarat Model’ of Water Markets

      Navroz K. Dubash

1. ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’: Absence of Groundwater in Water Allocation of Narmada Basin

      Rahul Ranade

1. India’s Groundwater Challenge and the Way Forward

      P. S. Vijayshankar, Himanshu Kulkarni and Sunderrajan Krishnan

Section II  Historical Perspectives

1. Water and Waste: Nature, Productivity and Colonialism in the Indus Basin

      David Gilmartin

1. Questioning Masculinities in Water

      Margreet Zwarteveen

1. Colonialism, Capitalism and Nature: Debating the Origins of Mahanadi Delta’s Hydraulic Crisis (1803–1928)

      Rohan D’Souza

1. Well Irrigation in Gujarat: Systems of Use, Hierarchies of Control

      David Hardiman

1. Indigenous Irrigation in South Bihar: A Case of Congruence of Boundaries

      Niranjan Pant

Section III  Social and Political Dimensions

1. Contexts and Constructions of Water Scarcity

      Lyla Mehta

1. Socio-economic Implications of Depleting Groundwater Resource in Punjab: A Comparative Analysis of Different Irrigation Systems

      Anindita Sarkar

1. Caste, Gender and the Rhetoric of Reform in India’s Drinking Water Sector

      Deepa Joshi

1. ‘Million Revolts’ in the Making

      Biksham Gujja, K.J. Joy, Suhas Paranjape, Vinod Goud and Shruti Vispute

1. Cauvery Dispute: A Lament and a Proposal

      Ramaswamy R. Iyer

Section IV  Economic Concerns

1. Efficiency of Water Use in Agriculture

      A. Vaidyanathan, in collaboration with K. Sivasubramaniyan

1. Measuring the Marginal Value of Water and Elasticity of Demand for Water in Agriculture

      E. Somanathan and R. Ravindranath

1. ‘Get the Price Right’: Water Prices and Irrigation Efficiency

Isha Ray

1. The Indian Monsoon, GDP and Agriculture

      Sulochana Gadgil and Siddhartha Gadgil

Section V 

1. Regional Perspectives

1. Understanding Agrarian Impasse in Bihar

      Avinash Kishore

1. Co-Management of Electricity and Groundwater: An Assessment of Gujarat’s Jyotirgram Scheme

      Tushaar Shah and Shilp Verma

1. Kick-starting a Second Green Revolution in Bengal

      Aditi Mukherji, Tushaar Shah and Partha Sarathi Banerjee

1. Punjab Water Syndrome: Diagnostics and Prescriptions

      Himanshu Kulkarni and Mihir Shah

1. National Overview

1. Interlinking of Peninsular Rivers: A Critique

A. Vaidyanathan

1. Water: Towards a Paradigm Shift in the Twelfth Plan

Mihir Shah

Notes on the Authors