Policy interplay and trade offs: some issues for groundwater policy in India

The paper examines the current status of groundwater, discusses various policy interplays and trade offs and identifies some issues for the effectiveness of groundwater policy. Water policy is influenced by various related policies, such as agricultural policy, land-use policy, energy policy, food policy, price policy, environment policy, credit policy, subsidy policy, etc and its effective implementation on the ground requires the participation of local institutions, like PRIs, farmers’ organization, users’ groups and civil society organization, apart from the government departments and agencies. Therefore, interfaces, interplays and interlinks of these policies, institutions, and organizations and groups are crucial for better policy formulation. Region-specific policy risks and tradeoffs and tradeoff among the major policy goals—efficiency, sustainability and equity—are also required to be assessed.Length: pp.679-691