For many decades in India, natural resource management (NRM) programs were implemented
by government bureaucracies in a centralized, top-down manner. The programs were
unsustainable and suffered from resource use inefficiency and inequity. In the 1990s, under
pressure from civil society organizations and multilateral agencies, the Government of India
and many State Governments introduced policies that decentralized NRM programs and
mandated active participation of users in the management of resources. When implementation
responsibilities were transferred to resource user-groups many of the problems associated with
centralization could be reduced significantly. However, despite their proven capacity of being
better resource managers than government agencies, the user-groups encountered difficulties
as self-governed people's organizations. Participation of users declined and problems of
equity resurfaced in many user-groups.
This dissertation describes the research that examines the causes of problems in the
governance of user-groups in villages of Mehsana District in Gujarat. Using an eight-fold
criteria of good governance, the study looks at eight Water Users Associations (WUAs) that
took over irrigation management responsibilities from the Irrigation Department. This
program of decentralization of irrigation is called Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM).
The assessment of each WUA on each of the eight criteria reveals a close link between
characteristics of good governance and the process of democratization. It can be seen that the
WUAs that performed well on participation, equity, transparency, accountability, rule of law
and consensus-orientation were less likely to face situations of dysfunction than the WUAs
that performed poorly on these criteria. These criteria for good governance are also the core elements of democratic governance. At the same time, the case-studies reveal the tension
between the democratization process that is attempted within the WUAs and the historical and
cultural legacy of the feudal, autocratic and patriarchal society that rural India has been for
many centuries.
The thesis supports the argument, with empirical evidence, that the decentralization process
can be sustainable only when user-groups institutionalize democratic processes and the early
leaders behave in a democratic manner. It also suggests that the transition from an
undemocratic institution to a democratic one can be enabled when external support agencies
play an important catalytic role.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/2841 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Enarth, Shashidharan |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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