Institutional and Regulatory Constraints of Governing Water in India: An Illustration through Groundwater Regulation and Pollution Abatement

Water governance involves multiple challenges that are difficult to address with a single solution. This complexity in governing water resources in India, which makes it a wicked problem illustrated through two cases – first, groundwater exploitation situated within the existing legal framework that enables unregulated resource appropriation. The inconsistencies in the role of the state with assistance for groundwater irrigation through different subsidies such as farm electricity supply, and the incentive structure for cultivation of water-intensive crops such as the paddy-wheat cropping systems reflects the paradox of groundwater exploitation problem. Second case elaborates on water pollution, especially by municipal sewage and the limited enforcement of environmental regulations, inadequate monitoring, and weak penalties for noncompliance. These cases call for a nuanced understanding of complexity in water resource problems for formulation and implementation of more sustainable pathways. This understanding is drawn from the analytical framework constitutive of path-dependency and wicked problem concepts. The paper traces the path-dependence in emergence of these wicked problems – groundwater exploitation and water pollution. It elaborates on how the efforts to modernise water governance and for irrigation expansion within the contextual factors and institutional legacies have led to unintended consequences. This understanding is crucial for undertaking legal and institutional reforms that could introduce flexibility, continuous evaluation, and robust accountability mechanisms.