Workshop on Realization of Fundamental Right to Water in India: Targeting Equity and Inclusiveness through Executive Led Schemes

The NLSIU is hosting a one day workshop on ‘Realization of Fundamental Right to Water in India: Targeting Equity and Inclusiveness through Executive Led Schemes’ sponsored by ICSSR (Indian Council of Social Science Research). This workshop is being held on Monday, March 11, 2024, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The registration link is available here.

Introduction

The right to water is a fundamental right recognized by the higher judiciary in India. The courts have reiterated the rights through different judicial decisions and reminded the State of its duty to adopt positive measures to assure its citizens of this right without discrimination and arbitrariness. Nevertheless, neither the legislature nor the executive have recognized the right to water as an entitlement in any statute or drinking water scheme. Administrative directions from the executive branch regulate the drinking water sector in India.

The central government has focused on the drinking water sector in rural areas since the introduction of community development schemes. In urban areas, particularly metropolitan cities, municipal legislation focuses on water supply. After the 73rd and 74th Amendment acts in 1992, the local self-governments were responsible for water supply and management throughout the country.

Despite these decentralization attempts, the central government supported the country’s drinking water sector through various schemes. Hitherto, most of the schemes focused on the rural sector. One of the schemes that focuses on the urban water sector is the AMRUT Scheme, which focuses on urban water supply and developing urban infrastructure.

ICSSR’s Research Initiative 

The Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), started in 2015 and aims to provide basic civic amenities to urban areas to improve quality of life, focusing on equity and inclusiveness, and ensuring adequate water supply in urban areas by implementing urban revival projects. This short-term 6-month empirical research supported by ICSSR examines the contribution of the AMRUT Scheme to the realization of the right to water in Bengaluru city. Through a socio-legal approach, it looks at how this executive-designed scheme helps the people realize their fundamental rights and helps the State implement the constitutional obligations of assuring clean and safe drinking water. This project examined how the AMRUT scheme that aims to secure functional household tap connections to urban areas tries to ensure equity and inclusiveness among water users. Here, the project investigated whether the ability to pay for water connections determines or compromises equity and inclusiveness. It also explored how this scheme helps to promote water conservation strategies in urban spaces.

About the Workshop

This workshop brings together experts, scholars, policy specialists and stakeholders interested in water policies and schemes to examine various contours of contribution of executive determined water schemes to realization of right to water in urban areas and how the state uses these schemes to implement its constitutional objectives of assuring human right to water in India.

The poster for this workshop is available here.