Integrated River Basin Planning – Replicable ... - India Water Portal

Integrated River Basin Planning: India and the EU share experience on policy and practice
Water and Environmental Policies in India
stakeholders, reflecting society’s responsibility for water management;
• organizational structures at basin and sub-basin levels to enable decision
making at the lowest appropriate level, rather than a centralized decisionmaking
model; and
• the government coordinating the national management of water resources
across water use sectors.
3 Water and
Environmental
Policies in India
3.1 Policies and Institutions
Given the federal structure of governance in India, it is the national (federal)
government that lays down broad guidelines on policies and programmes and
enacts national laws. The National Water Policy (2002) and National Environment
Policy (2006) are typical examples of national policies. It is the respective state
legislature that announces state-specific policies and programs and enacts statespecific
laws. The states are free to adopt the national policies or announce
completely new laws. However, by and large, states define their policies generally
in line with national policies. For example, Kerala has announced its state water
policy in 2008 following broad principles that are laid down in the national policy.
The resource management related institutions at the national level and state level
are broadly described in Table 1.
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