Water Management in Rural India

Abstract

Achieving effective and efficient management of water is crucial for human survival and development.  Of late, it has emerged as a grave global concern. The realization of the limited availability of water in space and time under conditions of population explosion and its simmering pressures in water has caused designing of ‘modern’ water management initiatives which are globally manufactured but implementable in local communities, India being no exception. Water management, as an integrated system based upon local knowledge and practices, is either ‘non-existent’ or ‘irrational’, ‘narrowly pragmatic’ and ‘in the process of disappearance’. If water is a basic resource necessary for sustaining all human activities, its provision in the desired quantity and quality and at the right time and place through a workable local water management system must be regarded as an omnipresent phenomenon. Traditional knowledge informs each of these domains that are translated as practice in day-to-day life. The paper argues that the study of such systems is immensely important not only for the sake of enhancing the understanding of traditional resource management systems as situated knowledge systems and situated action locales, but also for appreciating their practical value in designing of more workable, socio-culturally viable, community-based solutions to the resource management problems encountered in recent times.