Social Inequality and Access to Water : Equity, Sustainability and Participation in Rhetoric of Drinking Water Reforms in India

Water scarcity and inequality in its access have emerged as fundamental problems in contemporary times. Investigating the question of social inequality and access to water, this book argues that that water scarcity is far from being a condition of lack of water resources, and unequal access to water is not just mere replication of pre-existing social inequalities. Rather, water scarcity and unequal access to it are found where appropriate institutions for water governance and delivery of water services are missing or weak.

The book attempts to examine pertinent questions like what institutions exist for governing drinking water, how do they structure and determine access to water and water service delivery, how accountable and inclusive these institutions are to ensure participation of different groups stakeholders. These pertinent questions are examined in the background of neoliberal reforms of policy and institutions in rural water sector, which supposedly intend to make water service delivery efficient, equitable and sustainable. Instead of considering community participation as given, the book examines how certain institutions succeed in mobilising an otherwise divergent community for collective participation, while others fail in doing so. It highlights that in the absence of institution building from the below, the reform process may produce outcomes which would be contradictory to what reforms aimed at.