Water security and governance in India : key to sustainable WASH services at scale forever

Water security, as an integral component of sustainable development, has always been largely a governance challenge. Although India has emerged as a top‐ranking nation in terms of water sector investments, outcomes have been poor as a result of significant slippages; one of the key factors being the unsustainability of water sources. Poor governance that has resulted in weak convergence at policy, programme and institutional levels, has consistently undermined efforts towards achieving water safety and security. The programmes have also shied away from addressing the deep‐rooted, perverse incentives like subsidy‐induced over extraction and underlying institutional factors resisting change. The watershed management programmes have also generated issues of riparian rights, inequity and competing water use in the context of archaic legislation and a weak regulatory framework. The Government of India (GoI), as part of its initiatives in operationalising it's National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) 2010 guidelines (GoI, 2010), have identified ten districts in different agro‐climatic zones to pilot the concept of village water security. However, the programme is partially complete as the focus is confined only to 'drinking water security' and does not address the critical factors of sustainable convergence and governance. The proposal is to pilot test and demonstrate a comprehensive and sustainable water security programme through a bottom‐up and adaptive planning process by bringing together governance and capacity building. The programme plans to strengthen the water sector governance framework in operationalising the Draft National Water Policy, 2012 and the 2010 NRDWP guidelines, by providing local solutions to the global concerns of climate change adaptability.