Groundwater Governance: Ownership of Groundwater and its Pricing

Water governance refers to the range of political, social, economic and administrative systems that are in place to regulate the development and management of water resources and provision of water services at different levels of society.  Governance issues have important implications on the management of water resources at all administrative levels-national, regional and local-and a prerequisite for successful implementation of any integrated water resource management scheme. Ground water governance is a part of the water governance that deals with issues and development related to ground water.  Exponential growth in the use of ground water in the country, primarily for irrigation, during last three decades, has contributed significantly to agriculture and economic development.  However, the haphazard development of ground water particularly, in north, west and southern India, has led to over-exploitation that has resulted in depletion of groundwater table, scarcity in availability, and deterioration in quality of ground water due to the intrusion of polluting substances. The issues of groundwater management and its governance have come to the forefront.  However, legal instruments, institutional infrastructures and incentives do not support these issues.  Unless appropriate groundwater management policy and control strategies, supported by suitable regulations and legislation, are brought into implementation, groundwater scarcity will continue to rise with additions of new complexities.  The issues of groundwater governance, its ownership and incentives including pricing need a national debate to arrive at a consensus among stakeholders, planners, managers and environmentalists. As a step towards that, Indian National Committee on Hydrology, a constituent body of Ministry of Water Resources, has sponsored this National Symosium with focal theme on “"groundwater Governance; Ownership of Ground Water and its Pricing".  In addition to five focal technical themes, a plenary session on "Groundwater Governance-Issues and Perspectives" convened by eminent panelists has been arranged.  A special endeavour has been given to acquire feedback and groundwater management problems being encountered by the State Ground Water Department.  The symposium is the twelfth in the series of National symposium on Hydorlogy sponsored by the INCOH.  The National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee and the Central Ground Water Board, Faridabad have jointly organized the symposium.