特集 India Japan Innovation Potentials［招待論文：研究論文］

Stakeholder Perception of Addressing
Water Stress in Nagpur, India
Lessons for Enabling Participatory Governance

ナーグプルの水ストレスに対する利害関係者の認識
インドにおける参加型統治の研究

Vibhas Sukhwani

Doctoral Program, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

スクワニ ヴィバス
慶應義塾大学大学院政策・メディア研究科後期博士課程
Correspondence to: vibhas@sfc.keio.ac.jp

Rajib Shaw

Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

ショウ ラジブ慶應義塾大学大学院政策・メディア研究科教授

Abstract:

While the situations of ‘water stress’ are progressively on the rise, the rapid
urbanization trends are also leading to urban-rural water conflicts, evident from thecase of Nagpur, India. Due to the varied stakeholder groups at multiple levels, it has
therefore been realized that the consideration of diverse stakeholder interests andvalues is essential for effective water resource management (like in Japan). In lightof that, this research adopts a qualitative approach (key informant interviews) toestablish a comprehensive account of stakeholder perception in Nagpur for enabling aparticipatory governance approach.
インドのナーグプルの実態から窺えるように、急速な都市化は都市と農村における水問題に拍車をかけている。効果的な水資源の管理には、それぞれの階層における利害関係者の多様な意向や価値を考慮することが（日本の事例のように）不可欠であるとされている。ナーグプルにおいて参加型統治を実現するために、包括的に利害関係者の認識を明らかにすべく、本研究では質的手法（重要な情報提供者に対するインタビュー調査）を用いた。

Keywords: water stress, urban-rural, participatory governance, stakeholder perception
水ストレス、都市と農村、参加型統治、利害関係者の認識

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1

INTRODUCTION
Beyond the essence for human survival, water lies at the core of sustainable

development and is crucial for socio-economic growth, energy and agriculture
production, and healthy ecosystems (United Nations, 2021). Against the growing
water demands worldwide and the ﬁnite stock of available water resources, ʻwater
stressʼ (an element of water scarcity) has today become a buzz word. The situation ofʻwater stressʼ occurs when the water demands exceed the available quantity during a
speciﬁc time period or when poor quality restricts its utilization (EEA, 2021). The
gradual change in hydrological phenomenon is further intensifying the water stresssituation worldwide, especially evident in Asian countries (like India) due to theirsigniﬁcant demographic growth and lifestyle changes (Ray & Shaw, 2019; Singh etal., 2021).
According to the UN DESA (2019) report, the world population is projected toincrease from 7.6 billion (in 2018) to 9.8 billion by 2050, wherein the proportion ofurban population is projected to reach 68% (55% in 2018). In parallel with that, thefreshwater demands in urban areas are projected to increase by 50% to 80% (Flörke
et al., 2018; World Bank, 2018), and the demand for water intensive resources, likefood and energy, are also projected to increase by over 50% (IRENA, 2015). These
projections are highly concerning in the backdrop of already existing resource
shortfalls, wherein 2.2 billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed
drinking water services, and over half of the global population lacks safely managed
sanitation services (WHO/UNICEF, 2019). Even more alarming is the fact that theurban areas predominantly meet their water demands from outside their physicalboundaries (Heard et al., 2017), due to which there are increasing conflicts with therural areas. Water reallocation from rural to urban regions has now become acommon strategy (Garrick et al., 2019), and Padowski & Gorelick (2014) highlighted
that one-third of worldʼs surface water dependent cities are already facing
competition with the agricultural users. Nevertheless, the conventional government
led top-down strategies have progressively proved to be inadequate, and the policy
mechanisms to address the water conflicts at local level remain to be underdeveloped
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特集 India Japan Innovation Potentials(Ballabh, 2008; Cullet et al., 2015).
Babcock et al. (2016) stressed that the effective management of water resources
is highly complex, as it involves varied stakeholder groups (like urban-rural residents,
farmers, industry, government oﬃcials, etc.) at multiple levels. The stakeholders, ingeneral, refer to those people or groups of people who can potentially affect, or canpotentially be affected, by the decisions on water-related issues, whether on a local
catchment level or at the international transboundary level (Hockaday, 2020). For thesound management of water resources in alignment with the goals of efficiency,
sustainability and equity, the necessity of integrated water resources management(IWRM) and stakeholder participation has therefore been recognized for a long time,
yet their implementation is often hindered by the issues like that of institutional ﬁt
and interplay (Christophe & Tina, 2015). Porras et al. (2018) underlined that the
stakeholder perception (i.e., the opinions and awareness that someone has) of water
ecosystem services greatly affects how they are managed. An increasing number ofstudies (eg. Tshikolomo et al., 2012; Babcock et al., 2016; Montgomery et al., 2016;
Smetanová et al., 2018; Haldar et al., 2021) have correspondingly also focused on
unravelling the stakeholder perceptions in different contexts, duly acknowledging
that the success of effective water governance relies upon the recognition of
stakeholder interests and values. Gondo et al. (2019) also stressed that although thestakeholder perceptions vary, they form an integral part of water management.
To establish a precise understanding of these aspects at local level, this research
discusses a speciﬁc case of Nagpur in Central India, which is now being recognized
as one of the fastest growing cities in the world from 2019-2035 in terms of economic
growth (Holt, 2018). While Nagpur is witnessing rapid urbanization paralleled by a
growing demand of freshwater resources, the wider metropolitan region has recently
experienced serious water stress concerns due to upstream developments and climate
variations (Deshkar, 2019; Sukhwani & Shaw, 2020). By analyzing the secondary
data on water utilization trends from the Pench Project (key surface water source in
Nagpur), Sukhwani et al. (2020) uncovered that the declining freshwater availability
is also leading to urban-rural conflicts, as the prioritized allocation to urban areas

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disproportionately impacts the co-dependent sectors (agriculture, energy, etc.) andrural areas in wider region. However, there is still a limited understanding about the
upstream-downstream implications of rapid urbanization and stakeholder conflicts atregional level.
In due consideration of the existing research gaps, this study aims to understandthe perception of various stakeholder groups in Nagpur for establishing acomprehensive account of water stress concerns and identifying the focus areas forenabling a participatory approach to water governance. The two key objectives of thisresearch are: 1) To study the stakeholder perception in Nagpur for the ongoing water
stress situation, the current shortcomings, and the potential solutions. To achieve thesame, a qualitative approach (based on key-informant interviews) has been adopted,
as it has the potential to reveal the complexities of diverse subjective views (Jacobs& Buijs, 2011); 2) To establish a comprehensive account of stakeholder perception
and suggest feasible directions for enabling participatory governance. Herein, theterm ʻparticipatoryʼ mainly refers to the participation of diverse stakeholders acrossurban and rural areas within a defined space (like region and watershed). As theurban-rural relationships are expected to get severely constrained due to the changing
climate and the limited stock of water resources, it is hoped that this research will
provide a wider perspective to decision makers and pave the way for policy reforms
in Nagpur and beyond.
The remaining part of this paper is structured as follows. In reference to theexisting literature, Section 2 establishes a theoretical foundation for the conducted
research and highlights the good practices from Japan. Section 3 provides an
overview of the Nagpur case, and the corresponding urban-rural water linkages andgovernance structures. The research methods adopted for this study are explained in
Section 4. Section 5 describes the results of the study, and Section 6 interprets thestudy results in reference to the existing literature. Lastly, Section 7 summarizes thederived research ﬁndings and outlines the way forward.

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2

LITERATURE REVIEWDivided into three parts, this section is mainly intended to establish a theoreticalfoundation for the readers to comprehend the conducted research. The first subsection discusses the growing relevance of urban-rural linkages and emerging water
conflicts. The second sub-section discusses the importance of participatory
governance approach. The third and last sub-section highlights the Japanese goodpractices of water management. For the literature review, relevant publications from
Scopus database and online grey literature were referred.
2.1

Urban-Rural Linkages and Water Conflicts
With deﬁned administrative boundaries across space, urban and rural areas exist

as independent entities, but they are closely interlinked through a variety of spatial(food, water, people, good, etc.) and sectoral (agricultural, industrial, etc.)
interlinkages (Tacoli, 1998; Akkoyunlu, 2015). The rural areas have traditionallyserved as the center of key natural resources (like water) for their urban counterparts,
while the urban areas have provided the rural populations with access to markets andspecialized services like education, healthcare, etc. With the growing concentration of
populations and economic activities in urban areas, the form and nature of theseinterlinkages is increasingly transforming today. More and more productive lands(croplands, forests, etc.) around the urban areas are being acquired for development
purposes, while the urban resource demands continue to rise at a rapid pace (alsodiscussed by Sukhwani et al., 2019a). In recognition of the changing regional
dynamics and the environmental sustainability concerns, the importance ofstrengthening urban-rural linkages has recently been recognized at the global policy
levels too, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (mainly
Sustainable Development Goal ʻSDGʼ 11) and The New Urban Agenda.
Due to the changing urban-rural dynamics, the localized water conflicts are also
now on the rise, alongside the interstate or international level conflicts which have forlong been recognized (Moore, 2016). As urban and rural areas within a regional space
rely upon a shared stock of water resources, the growing water demands in urban

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areas are primarily being met through the reservoirs that were constructed for
irrigation purposes. In line with that, the competing claims on the limited water
resources between the diverse stakeholders across different sectors (agriculture,industry, etc.) and administrative scales are also now gradually being discussed in thescientiﬁc literature (eg. Celio et al., 2010; Flörke et al., 2018; Garrick et al., 2019).
2.2

Importance of Participatory Governance Approach
While the localized water conflicts are on the rise, the idea of participatory

governance is increasingly being recognized for realizing the goal of IWRM
(Palumbo, 2017). It has been embraced by major organizations around the world,
including the World Bank and UN-Habitat (Fischer, 2012). Yet, little is known about
the distinguishing attributes of participatory governance initiatives (both inconceptual and empirical terms). While ʻparticipationʼ generally means ʻthe act orstate of taking part in somethingʼ, in the context of development planning, it mainly
relates to the process of involving the stakeholders in planning and implementationof decision making programs (Heyd & Neef, 2004). Palumbo (2017) explained thatʻparticipatory governanceʼ refers to the democratic mechanisms which are intended tobridge the gaps between citizens and government agencies through deliberative
practices, in order to increase the effectiveness and responsiveness of public policy. It
entails engaging the relevant individuals and organizations outside the government tofacilitate the collaborative discursive relationships.
The importance of a participatory governance approach is reflected in the factthat it takes into consideration the varied stakeholder interests and perception (refer
to Fig. 1) in the management of water resources. Beyond the multi-faceted beneﬁts it
provides, the participation of diverse stakeholders in decision making also widens thescope for social consensus, and the realization of IWRM principles (Vaessen &Brentführer, 2015). The stakeholder participation can also take many forms, likeconsultation, interactive, functional, institutionalized, etc. (Fischer, 2012).

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Fig. 1: V arying stakeholder interests and perceptions of water resource management(Modified from Vaessen & Brentführer, 2015, Module 7)

2.3

Good Practices of Participatory Water Governance in Japan
With nearly two-third of its lands covered by forests, Japan is recognized as amountainous country (Population in 2018: 126.5 million; Urban population share >90%) (Sugiura & Sonohara, 2019), wherein majority of the forest lands are privately
owned. In due recognition of the importance of forest management for water-source
environment conservation and watershed performance, the governments in Japan
have for long been implementing diverse participatory approaches (new regulations,
economic measures, etc.), in close collaboration with local citizens and otherstakeholders. Sukhwani et al. (2019b) highlighted several such practices of
stakeholder collaboration and urban-rural partnerships in Japan, including the case ofwater conservation taxes (to promote cost sharing) in Yokohama and Kanagawa
Prefecture, incentivization of groundwater recharge in Kumamoto, and corporatesocial responsibility (CSR) programs of Honda Suigennomori and Suntory. Otsuka etal. (2009) have also described the history of water resource management in Japan,
alongside the numerous examples of environment conservation taxes (intended tobridge the revenue shortages) in different Prefectures of Japan. Further, theGovernment of Japan also works in close cooperation with the Prefectural
Governments to support the watershed management activities for disaster mitigation

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and prevention (like replanting of trees and restoration of forest landscapes), whereinhigh emphasis is also put on enabling stakeholder engagement (like business sectors)
in forestry operations, enabling citizen participation, engagement of volunteer groups,
etc. (Forestry Agency, 2017).

3

CASE OF NAGPUR, INDIA
Nagpur - uniquely situated at the geographical center of India - is one of thelargest urban agglomerations of the country, and the third largest city in Maharashtra
State (location shown in Fig. 2). Spread over an area of 217.56 square kilometers ʻsq.
kmʼ, Nagpur city has a population of 2.405 million (2011 Census). While Nagpur has
for long been recognized as an important commercial and political center of Central
India, its strategic location and good connectivity offers high potential for economic
growth. To achieve a balanced development in wider region, Nagpur Metropolitan
Area (NMA) was notiﬁed by the Maharashtra State Government on 23rd July 1999,
which comprises of 721 villages and 24 Census Towns across the geographic area of
3577.70 sq.km. Majority of the lands within NMA are a combination of farmlands,
forests and water bodies, and the region also has rich mineral resources (NMC, 2011;
NIT, 2015).

Fig. 2: Location map of Nagpur in India (Image source: the authors).
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3.1

Urban-Rural Water Linkages in Nagpur
The water demands for urban areas in NMA (including Nagpur city) is mainly

met through surface water sources like lakes, rivers and reservoirs, and the rural areas
are predominantly reliant upon the groundwater sources (NIT, 2015). Within NMA,
Pench dam located in the northern part is one of the main sources of drinking water
for Nagpur city (provides nearly 520 million liters per day ʻMLDʼ out of the 670
MLD water demand). However, as a multipurpose project, it also serves for several
other purposes like irrigation, ﬁsheries, energy production, etc. In reference to therecently declining water levels in Pench dam, Sukhwani et al. (2020) further
uncovered that the priority water allocation to meet the rising water demands in
Nagpur city is leading to increasing conflict with the co-dependent rural areas in
upstream areas, and the allied sectors of agriculture and industry, especially during
the water deﬁcit years. Conversely, the wastewater generation from Nagpur city has
also been on the rise. MPCB (2019) highlighted that the city currently generates
around 505 MLD wastewater, of which nearly 130 MLD is being treated at the
Bhandewadi sewage treatment plant (Roy, 2018), which is then supplied for reuse at
the Koradi Thermal Power Station, in line with the joint agreement between Nagpur
Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Maharashtra State Power Generation Co. Ltd.
However, the bulk of residual untreated wastewater is directly released into thenatural drains, which pollutes the streams and rivers (mainly Nag river) flowing
towards the downstream areas.
3.2 Institutional Structure for Water Governance
In India, water is mainly a state (like prefecture in Japan) subject, wherein thestate governments address all water-related issues through different ministries anddepartments (Pangare et al., 2004; TISS, 2015). Within Maharashtra State, there areseveral (administrative and technical) government agencies which look at water
management activities at various levels (see Fig. 3). Within the broader Nagpur
region too, a number of agencies are responsible for planning, design, and executionof water management activities at different levels (like river basin, district, block,130

Stakeholder Perception of Addressing Water Stress in Nagpur, India

city, village). In Nagpur city, the water supply is managed by the NMC (an electedurban local body), under a ʻPublic Private Partnershipʼ (PPP) agreement with a
private agency named Orange City Water Pvt. Ltd. The annual water allocation for
NMC is determined by the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (river basin
agency), in accordance with the provisions set by Maharashtra Water Resources
Regulatory Authority. For the rural areas, the water supply is managed by multiple
agencies at different levels, including the village water and sanitation committees
under village councils at the local level (NMC, 2011; NIT, 2015).

Fig. 3: W ater Governance Structures in Maharashtra State, India (Modified from
Sukhwani et al., 2020).

4

RESEARCH METHODSIn reference to the earlier studies (discussed in Section 1 and Section 2), thisresearch adopts a qualitative approach, based on semi-structured interviews withidentiﬁed key stakeholders in Nagpur. Through purposive sampling technique, twelve
key informants are identiﬁed for this study across different stakeholder groups (asKEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.21 No.2 2021

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shown in Table 1). In general, the key informants are those who have formal positionsin the community, and can provide access to information which the researchers may
not have on their own (Hockaday, 2020). In consideration of that, half of the key
informants selected for this study are from varying government agencies, and theother key informants represent a variety of professions and interests in urban-ruralcontext. Relying upon the prior experience and previous research ﬁndings in the casestudy area, diverse key informants are selected to explore a multitude of opinions,place meanings and experiences.
Table 1: Details of Key Informants
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

SectorGovernment Agency
Government Agency
Government Agency
Government Agency
Government Agency
Government Agency
Academia & Research
Academia & Research
Civil Society
Private Sector
Private Sector / Research
Rural Community
Representative

Designation
Disaster Management Oﬃcer
Sub-divisional Engineer
Cluster Coordinator
Assistant Draftsman
Water Quality Expert
Joint Director Town planning
Professor
Scientist
Civil Engineer
Assistant General Manager
Geologist

Organization
District Disaster Management Authority, Nagpur
Irrigation Department, Hingna Branch
Panchayat Samiti, Parsheoni
Panchayat Samitti, Kamptee
Zilla ParishadNagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology
National Environmental Engineering Research InstitutePurti Sinchan Samruddhi Kalyankari Sanstha
Orange City Water Pvt. Ltd.
Geo-Hydro Consultants

Sarpanch (Village Head)

Nayakund Gram Panchayat

The interviews are mainly guided by four broad research topics: 1) Water stressin Nagpur region; 2) Transboundary implications in urban and rural areas; 3)
Shortcomings in current water governance approach; 4) Key areas of intervention. To
initiate the discussions with the key informants along these lines, four open-ended
questions are framed as follows: 1) Can you please share your perspective on theongoing water stress in Nagpur region? 2) In what ways do you think the water stresssituation is impacting the Nagpur city and surrounding region? 3) In your opinion,
are there any shortcomings of the current water management policies? 4) In youropinion, what are the key areas of interventions to enable a participatory approach towater governance? Herein, the interviews are deliberately less structured to provide
more flexibility for the respondents to provide in-depth information on the subject. A

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list of subsequent questions (e.g. ʻCould you elaborate a little on this?ʼ or ʻWhat do
you think are the key reasons for that?ʼ) are also designed to encourage detailed
responses from the interviewees.
All the interviews were performed one-on-one, during August-September 2019,
starting with an introductory explanation about the purpose of the interview, andfollowed by the basic questions designed to tap into place meanings. In general, theinterviews lasted between 30 to 75 minutes, and the average duration for all
interviews was 60 minutes. While most of the interviews were tape recorded (except
for few government stakeholders), all the interview discussions were manuallytranscribed into Word documents, and loaded into QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis)
Miner software to identify common themes and patterns for thematic analysis.

5

RESULTS

5.1

Stakeholder Perception of Water Stress in Nagpur region
The key-informants consistently pointed out that the climate variability in recent

years (like extreme rainfall and heatwaves) and upstream developments (constructionof Chaurai dam) in the Madhya Pradesh State have affected the water storage in the
Pench Project (key water source). At the same time, the groundwater levels in wider
Nagpur region are also reported to be declining, which is being attributed to thedeclining surface water availability. Beyond that, three other reasons are identiﬁed forthe ongoing water stress situation:
1. Urbanization and Industrialization: The key informants from ʻAcademia
and Researchʼ domain explained that the current situation is due to theaccumulated stressors over a period of time. While the growing influx ofrural populations to Nagpur city has led to increased water demands, theindustrialization trends have also been enhancing pressure on groundwater
resources.
2. Destruction of natural watersheds: The key informants from ʻCivil Societyʼand ʻPrivate Sectorʼ domain underlined that the urbanization andindustrialization trends are also associated with the decline in green cover
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and environmental degradation, which influence the earth temperature andrainfall. The expanding city boundaries in that manner are encroaching thenatural watersheds while affecting the groundwater recharge.
3. Poor Water Management: The key informants from ʻGovernment agenciesʼ
particularly highlighted the concerns of ageing infrastructure and nonrevenue water losses in Nagpur city, and the water-intensive (flow)
irrigation technique in rural areas. A common water management problem
highlighted through all the interviews is the lack of community awareness.
5.2

Stakeholder Perception of Transboundary Implications in Urban and
Rural Areas
Although the urban and rural areas in Nagpur are varyingly reliant upon surface

and groundwater sources, three speciﬁc transboundary implications are identiﬁed asfollows:
1. The recently declining water levels in Pench project has led to an acutewater shortage in both urban and rural areas of Nagpur. While the drinking
water demands in urban areas are met on priority, the co-dependent sectors
like agriculture, industries, etc. are disproportionately affected.
2. As the urban water demands are constantly rising, the key informants
collectively highlighted that a proportionately increasing amount ofwastewater is also being discharged towards downstream rural areas,
leading to water insecurity concerns in upstream and downstream areas.
3. While the agricultural production (rabi crops) and the rural livelihoods(animal husbandry, ﬁsheries, etc.) are affected, the current trends are also
associated with the decline in organic products in rural areas (like cowdung), and the increased use of chemical fertilizers.
5.3

Stakeholder Perception of Shortcomings in Current Water GovernanceApproachAccording to the statements of the key informants from ʻGovernment Agenciesʼ,134

Stakeholder Perception of Addressing Water Stress in Nagpur, India

proactive measures are being taken for effective water management, and several
government projects are being implemented in the form of infrastructuredevelopment, training programs, hackathons, etc. However, the lack of community
awareness and limited funding remain to be a major challenge. On the other hand, thekey informants from other domains highlighted that limited awareness not just at thecommunity level, but also at the governance level hinders the judicious use of water
resources. The informants from ʻAcademia and Researchʼ emphasized that there iscurrently a lack of innovation as no new ideas are being implemented at governancescale, and a need-based approach is followed discretely within different
administrative boundaries. The informants from ʻCivil Societyʼ further stressed that
there is also a lack of responsibility sharing amongst different stakeholders within awatershed. The informants from ʻPrivate sectorʼ also brought to the core several
policy constraints at various governance scales, as the regional planning continues tobe dominated by real-estate (economic growth) perspectives. Despite the declining
groundwater levels, the ʻrural community representativeʼ highlighted that the focus inrural areas remains to be on operation and maintenance of water supply systems,
rather than water planning.
5.4

Stakeholder Perception of Key Areas of Intervention
Over the identified reasons for water stress and shortcomings of governanceapproaches, several different areas of interventions have been highlighted, among
which the four common themes are:
1. Watershed Management: While the key informants from ʻGovernment
Agenciesʼ recognized the need for technology-based solutions (like to curb
water losses), the key informants from ʻCivil Societyʼ and ʻPrivate Sectorʼ
stressed on the need for rainwater harvesting through micro-watershedmanagement. In line with the ridge to valley planning concept, emphasis
needs to be put on conserving every drop of rainwater starting at the ridgeof watersheds.
2. Innovative ﬁnancing: The key informants from ʻAcademia and Researchʼ,
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ʻPrivate sectorʼ and ʻCivil Societyʼ domain pointed out that several different
compensation forms could be tapped to bridge the funding gaps in water
management, like through water pricing, corporate social responsibility,
provision of subsidies to rural areas, private sector engagement, etc.
3. Community Engagement: All the key informants emphasized enhancing
community awareness (through education, training, etc.) about the genuine
need for water harvesting, and citizen engagement for long-termsustainability. Empowering the village water committees could effectively
serve the purpose in rural areas.
4. Urban-Rural Policy coordination: As urban and rural areas are closelyinterlinked, all the key informants recognized that urban-rural policy
coordination is integral for regional development, and the scope of regional
agencies (like Nagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority
ʻNMRDAʼ) need to be enhanced to minimize the cross-sectoral andtransboundary impacts.

6

D I S C U S S I O N : E N A B L I N G PA R T I C I PAT O R Y
GOVERNANCE
Through the responses of key-informant interviews (Section 5), different

stakeholder groups are found to have varying levels of awareness on the ongoingwater stress situation in Nagpur. While, the key informants from government
agencies provided detailed insights into statutory water management practices andissues, other key-informants conversely highlighted several shortcomings of current
governance approaches, though a broader consensus was evident on certain aspects,
like the rising implications of climate change. While the complete elaboration ofthese results falls beyond the scope of this study, three broad lessons (explained infollowing sub-sections) could be derived through the study results for enabling
participatory governance.

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6.1

Community Awareness for Effective Water Use
All the stakeholder groups consistently highlighted the need for raisingcommunity awareness, in light of the growing water stress concerns in Nagpur. As
the rainfall patterns are reported to be progressively changing (in Section 5.1), a
genuine need has been recognized for stimulating a change in behaviors of water
users towards more sustainable practices, like water harvesting (in Section 5.4). GWP(2017) emphasized that the key to encourage IWRM and collective action lies in thecreation of shared values and a common understanding of water issues. Further,through the Japanese good practices (Section 2.3), it is revealed that the active citizen
engagement in water management initiatives (like as part of committee members,
training programs, campaigns, etc.) plays a key role in fostering social change.
Although water pricing interventions (like in Japan) are widely recognized to beeffective in altering the consumption patterns, the behavioral approaches (likepersuasive messages and water use comparisons) are also now gaining high currency
in enhancing water use eﬃciency (eg. case of Bogota; World Bank, 2015).
6.2

Watershed Management to Enhance Water Conservation
While the haphazard and rapid infrastructure development over the years has led

to accumulation of various stressors (Section 5.1), the growing water demand in
Nagpur city is also leading to increasing water use conflicts with the co-dependentrural areas, raising concerns for long-term sustainability. To address these issues, theimportance of enhancing water conservation through watershed management
approach has been recognized through the key-informant interviews (in Section 5.4).
As Heyd & Neef (2004) underlined, a watershed (or drainage basin or catchment
areas) mainly refers to a land area that drains into a stream, and watershedmanagement refers to the use, management, and investment in a number of interdependent resources (water, forests, and other land uses) within watersheds. Herein,
the ridge to valley approach (emphasized in Section 5.4) mainly seeks to detain,
divert, store, and maximize the available water for the range of water users within awatershed. The importance of watershed management for conserving water source
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environment is also evident through the Japanese good practices (Section 2.3).
Elaborating on the case of Kanagawa Prefecture (Japan), Sukhwani et al. (2020)
explained how the citizen water taxes can be utilized for comprehensive projects
focused on the conservation and restoration of water source environment, likeforestry conservation and groundwater protection.
6.3

Institutionalizing Stakeholder Participation to Enhance Policy
Coordination
For the context of Nagpur, the key-informants (except those from government

agencies) highlighted a core need for policy reforms and innovative governanceapproaches to address the emerging water stress concerns (in Section 5.3). The
importance of urban-rural policy coordination has particularly been recognized in the
backdrop of transforming urban-rural dynamics and growing water conflicts (Section
5.4). While the diverse stakeholder groups within the watershed boundaries have in
general varying interests and perceptions (as also explained in Section 2.2),
institutionalizing the stakeholder participation can not only initiate policy level
dialogue towards conflict resolution, but can also uncover several avenues forinnovative ﬁnancing, like through private sector engagement. To achieve the same,
there is a need for inclusive governance structures or multi-stakeholder platforms inplace. As the contemporary water governance structures in Nagpur do not fully
conform to the watershed boundaries (evident through Fig. 3), the presence of any
boundary organization or committee can not only serve for enhancing policy
coherence (like between urban and rural areas, water and agriculture department,etc.), but also minimize the transboundary implications in urban and rural areas. As
observed in the case of Japanese good practices (Section 2.3), urban-ruralpartnerships also demonstrate high potential for realizing participatory governance.

7

CONCLUSIONS
Through key-informant interviews with identified representatives of different

stakeholder groups, this study establishes a wider understanding about the stakeholder

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perceptions in Nagpur. While different stakeholder groups are observed to havevarying perceptions on the ongoing water stress situation, current shortcomings ingovernance, and the potential solutions, the decision makers should essentiallyconsider the diverse views, to stimulate a participatory approach of governance for
effective water management. The study acknowledges that, although the concept ofparticipatory governance is still evolving, emphasis needs to be put on raisingcommunity awareness, adopting watershed approach, and institutionalizing
stakeholder participation, to promote any policy level dialogue between diverse
stakeholder groups and enable stakeholder participation in water-management
decisions. The cross-validation and conﬁrmation of these study results through othercorroborating evidence (like through questionnaire surveys and secondary data
analysis) can further help enhance their authenticity and usefulness.
Towards the end, the authors acknowledge that this research is subjected tocertain limitations. Firstly, this research is based on a limited number of keyinformant interviews, which warrants further investigation with a larger sample size.
Secondly, although the selected key-informants in this study represent a wide rangeof perspectives, majority of them are government stakeholders, who are typicallyinvolved from a regulatory standpoint, and tend to be impartial towards competing
water uses. The future research scope therefore includes a systematic analysis ofstakeholder perception, while ensuring equal and diverse stakeholder participation.
The authors also acknowledge that the interviews were conducted before the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic. However the study results are still very significant as they
open up future directions of research in the areas of rainwater harvesting andwatershed management, which are generally overlooked.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSBoth authors were involved in conceptualization, investigation, visualization,
methodology, and writing—review and editing; formal analysis, software, andwriting—original draft preparation, V.S.; validation, resources, supervision, project
administration, and funding acquisition, R.S. Both authors have read and agreed to
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the published version of the manuscript.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Both authors sincerely acknowledge the valuable support and cooperation received fromthe key informants (from Nagpur region) in conducting this study. The ﬁrst author (V.S.) is also
thankful to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan,
for the provided scholarship.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
There are no potential conflicts of interest related to this study.

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