The policy terrain surrounding water-related issues in South Asia faces the crises of equity, efficiency and ecology. The solutions proposed by its hierarchic hydrocracies have generally favoured supply augmentation through new construction. This approach neglects the constraints embedded in the very nature of water governance. The result has been the consolidation of sectoral approaches, with irrigation, drinking water supply, flood control, navigation, fisheries and hydropower generation considered in isolation. Solutions pursued within one sub-sector have often conflicted with those in others.
That disjunctures in the water management terrain exits has been recognised since the mid-1990. Since then, too, it has been suggested that integrated water resource management (IWRM) can attain the objectives of a holistic approach. The Global Water Partnership states that “IWRM is a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems”.1 The definition uses terms that are common place in debates about large dams, such as equity, sustainability, efficiency, participation and respecting the ecosystem. It implies that the conventional approaches have failed to address these issues which are central to the sustainable management of water and prevent the degradation of both the resource base as well as the communities dependent on them for sustenance.