Water Policy in India : Building Blocks for Synergy with Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy for Inclusive Growth

India’s mainstream water policy reform is currently focusing on institutions, governance and resource development. The importance of technology and innovation in water resource management has received less attention. The type of innovation and the changes which must be made within the current setup has not been debated previously and the conditions that enable or hinder those changes remain unclear. India is facing many water challenges due to various factors such as increasing population, urbanization, changing lifestyle, changing frequencies of rainfall events, excess withdrawal of groundwater, non-­scientific water allocation, quality deterioration, wastage and inefficient use. The role that science, technology and innovation (STI) can play in delivering water policy objectives for better decision making for water resource management, and operational pathways to address these challenges provides a highly significant lens for approaching assessment of broader water policy framework. India’s water policy has been drafted keeping in view certain basic principles such as integrated perspective on society, economy and the environment; equity and social justice in allocation, good governance through informed decision-­making, community management under public trust, ecological needs, basin as the basic hydrological unit for planning, demand management and consideration of the local, geo-­climatic and hydrological situation. Implicit in all these principles is the need for integrating evidence ­based science into policy design and delivery. Role of better STI integration within the water policy framework is critical for operationalizing these principles in a holistic manner. This paper argues that integrated and effective water management cannot be achieved if information, technology, people and ecosystems are conceptualized as separate entities. There are still some basic issues that are tentative about how to put principles of integrated water resources management into practice. The paper delineates various transformative changes that are required in the current management system that governs the water resource development and use as outlined in the National Water Policy of 2012. The paper also identifies key policy areas, discusses challenges and opportunities for strengthening the water policy framework taking into account instances of synergy between the National Water Policy (NWP) 2012 and the STI Policy 2013