This is a book about water, the elixir of life and the basis of all civilizations. It concentrates on water, whose increasing scarcity underscores the need for its more efficient management. At the same time, the pressing concerns of equity and environmental sustainability have the effect of rendering governance and policy making in the water sector much more complex. This suggests the need for a holistic approach to grapple with the complexity and indicate feasible solutions through appropriate policy and governance. This book is an outcome of this concern. Being focused on policy and governance, it attempts to look at the emerging issues in a comprehensive manner. The perspective for the book is mainly social, economic and institutional and not technological.

The book focuses on water resources of India. This is a country with one of the longest and richest experiences of management of water resources. India has also created surface and ground water irrigation potential of nearly 100 million hectares, which has made it a country with the largest irrigated area among all the countries of the world. It supports 17 per cent of the world's population with only 4 per cent of the world's renewable water resources and 2.6 per cent of the world's land area. Its per kilometre density of population at 325 is 6.5 times that of the world. India also faces the problem of poverty. Its removal along with provision of food and water security for the ever-increasing population is much dependent on the manner in which water resources are developed, distributed and managed. While India remains the focal point of the book, the issues discussed and their implications are relevant to a larger part of the world, specially the developing world.

The ideas and approaches presented in the book have evolved over a long period of time beginning from the late seventies of the last century when I was working as Member (Economics), Rashtriya Barh Ayog (National Commission on Flood), Government of India. Since then, I had the privilege to be associated with several other bodies dealing with water resources. I also got an opportunity to undertake about two dozen research studies covering almost all aspects of water resources in most of the major states.