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Irrigation water management for food security in India: The forgotten realities - Paper by IRAP
In this paper, the authors examine the current debates around India's water crisis and its implications for food security in the country. The paper takes a critical look at the recent official assessments of groundwater exploitation in India in the context of these debates.
The paper proposes that there is a need to make a qualitative assessment of the magnitude of food security and water management challenges facing the country. It argues that two important factors drive the agricultural growth and food production in India. These include access and availability of arable land and water resources, which need to be examined and analysed with particular reference to their regional variations, to get a true understanding of the situation.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
Urban Development Policy 2009 - Department of Urban Development (Government of Karnataka)
The Urban Development Policy, Karnataka has been developed, by the Department of Urban Development (Government of Karnataka), as a response to the challenges that are being faced by the state due to rapid urbanisation leading to:
An increase in population in urban areas due to migration
Increase in the number of poor residents in urban areas
Infrastructural shortfall on several fronts
Shortage of resources
The challenge of ensuring the basic welfare of the poor in urban areas
The increasing need for strengthening governance, planning and administration
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
Water: Private, Limited - Issues in privatisation, corporatisation and commercialisation of water sector in India by Manthan Adhyayan Kendra
This book by Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, highlights the emerging issues related to privatisation of water in the context of the recent surge of privatisation-related initiatives in the water sector in India.
The history of attempts at privatisation of water till recent times from all across the globe indicate that they have been met with strong resistance where ever they have been implemented. This is because of the total failure of all these programmes to address the social responsibility of providing water to all without consideration of profits.
However, this backlash against privatisation has led international donor agencies to use a different type of strategy and language. This has led to a shift from Private Sector Partnership (PSP) to Public Private Partnership (PPP) and more recently to the Water Sector Reforms (WSR) in countries such as India.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
India's Sanitation for All: How to make it happen - An ADB report
This discussion paper by ADB, examines the current state of sanitation in India in the context of the Millennium Developmental Goals, which call for a 50% reduction in the proportion of people without sanitation by 2015 and India's goal of providing Sanitation for All by the 2012.
The paper targets policy makers, governmental ministries, state and local governments, non-governmental organisations, developmental agencies and all those who are involved in the planning and implementation of sanitation policies in India. It makes a few recommendations for the successful implementation of sanitation efforts in India.The focus of these recommendations is on household sanitation, which includes safe disposal of human excreta, as measured by household ownership of a sanitary latrine and household access to drainage facilities.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
Negotiate: Reaching agreements over water - Paper by IUCN
This book by IUCN is directed at practitioners involved in water-related negotiations that aim at fair and mutual agreements on optimum and sensible use of water by all. The book provides the necessary motivation, ideas, tools and inspiration for people involved in water negotiations throughout the world.
Many a times, the underlying approach to negotiations involves bargaining and competition. However, the book believes that emphasis on constructive engagement involving multiple perspectives and consensus building can lead to fair and equal distribution of this valuable resource to everyone.
The book is divided into five chapters that give out important key messages as to how to go about the process of negotiating:
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
School water, sanitation and hygiene education - Paper by Water for People
This document by Water for People, emphasises the importance of appropriate sanitation coverage in schools that is gender sensitive and culturally acceptable to the needs of both boys and girl students, rather than the exclusive focus on adequacy of facilities.
It discusses the case of schools in rural areas in West Bengal where it was found that although the coverage of sanitation facilities was reasonable, lack of adequate availability of water, lack of consideration to student differences in terms of age and gender in the construction of latrines and drinking water facilities, poor systems of maintainence and disposal of wastes made the sanitation facilities inappropriate for use.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
Rank of Indian cities on sanitation (2009-10) - National Rating and Award Scheme for Sanitation in Indian Cities (MoUD)
In order to get a sense of the current status of sanitation in India's cities, a survey was initiated by the Ministry of Urban Development as a part of the National Rating and Award Scheme for Sanitation for Indian Cities. The methods used for the survey can be found on the Ministry of Urban Development website.
The findings and the rankings of the cities according to the survey found that the situation was grim with only 25 cities topping the list, while majority of the others lagged behind in terms of a number of sanitation parameters.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
Holistic Engineering and Hydro-Diplomacy in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin - EPW Paper
This document by Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, highlights the importance of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin as an important source of water for many of the countries in South Asia, and the crucial role of negotiations in the context of the impending water crisis threatening the basin with the phenomenon of climate change.
The document argues that traditional water engineering has been found to be highly reductionistic and ineffective in bringing about development in the GBM basin and the continuing poverty in the GBM basin can be linked to the absence of a holistic ecological perspective, use of an incomplete framework for economics and ignoring of long-run economic costs of the actions proposed.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 6 months ago
Articles
The slum water programme business plan: A sustainable water solution for marginalized slum communities - A document by ROWS
This document by Reach Out Water Solutions (ROWS) highlights the daily reality of people living in the slums of Mumbai and the inadequate water supply available to the 10 million slum residents to meet their daily requirements.
It presents a business plan, namely the Slum Water Programme (SWP) that proposes a comprehensive, community driven, decentralised programme to meet the water needs of the slum community.
The programme proposes to do this in three ways:
Firstly, by dealing with the problem of inadequate supply of water to the slum residents by the municipality, through increasing the availability of water
By providing improved quality of water through utilising water purification techniques
Improving access to water by making it available at the doorstep
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 7 months ago
Articles
Eye of the storm: Integrated solutions to the climate, agriculture and water crisis - A brief by IATP
This brief by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) acknowledges that climate, water and agriculture are the three important factors that are facing severe crisis in recent years and argues that it is necessary to recognise that these three factors cannot be viewed in isolation, but as converging, interdependent and interconnected factors.
The convergence of these three factors means that solutions to the crisis cannot be found in isolation, but need to be complementary, that move away from dominant industrial agricultural models, to models that are sustainable and just.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 7 months ago
Articles
A study on Bellandur tank and changes due to urbanisation - A report by CASUMM
This article by Collaborative for the Advancement of the Study of Urbanism through Mixed Media (CASUMM) presents the case of Bellandur Tank in Bangalore city and highlights how rapid unplanned urbanisation has led to the destruction of one of the biggest water bodies in Bangalore Urban district.
The tank provided sustenance for people who lived in the areas surrounding it and provided water for irrigation, household purposes such as drinking, washing and cleaning, besides providing ample supply of fish. The tank was thus an integral part of the society and had a relationship with the communities residing around the tank.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 7 months ago
Articles
Revitalizing Asia's Irrigation: To sustainably meet tomorrow's food needs - A report by IWMI and FAO
This document by International Water Management Institute (IWMI) highlights the urgent need for improving irrigation systems to enhance food production to meet the needs of the growing population in Asia, in the context of increasing urbanisation and the challenges posed by climate change.
Experience has shown that improvement in irrigation systems have led to improvement in agricultural growth in Asia in the past where irrigated agriculture still continues to be the heart of rural growth.
However, experts estimate that demand for food and animal feed will double during the next fifty years in Asia. This will require better management of the existing irrigated lands as opening up of new alternatives is constrained by lack of land and water resources.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 7 months ago
Articles
Rainwater harvesting in Mumbai: Application of GIS
This blog post by Prakash Apte, draws attention to the increasing water demand in urban areas because of industrialisation and population growth by giving the example of Mumbai and points at the current scenario of the lack of availability of adequate and safe water supply to meet the needs of the ever increasing population in the city.
The author proposes that rainwater harvesting can be a viable solution in cities such as Mumbai to meet this increasing demand for water and can provide an opportunity for equitable, efficient and sustainable use of water resources.
There is an urgent need for evolving a rainwater harvesting system that is sustainable, replicable and economically viable and argues that the benefits of using rainwater harvesting can lead to a range of social, economic and environmental benefits and can contribute substantially to improving the quality of life in Mumbai.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has a role and application, in promoting a system and methodology for rain water harvesting and for providing the data needed to enable its large scale implementation in the context of Mumbai.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 7 months ago
Articles
Climate Change Negotiations: India's submissions to the UNFCCC - A report by the MoEF
This document published by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), expresses India's views and position taken in the context of the international negotiations on climate change that took place following the Bali Action Plan adopted in 2007, followed by attempts at negotiations carried by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the light of the Copenhagen Summit in 2009.
aarti kelkar kh... posted 9 years 7 months ago
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