India’s water policy response to climate change

This article examines the formation process and strategic direction of the National Water Mission, the government of India’s water policy response to climate change launched in 2008. The policy development process is found to be largely an internal government affair. Numerous water supply and demand management strategies as well as institutional reform measures are advocated, constituting key elements of adaptive water management. However, it reconfirms the government’s commitment to a primary focus on large-scale supply-side infrastructure approaches, with the plasticity of climate change being mobilized as additional justification. Non-government actors instead advocate decentralized, smaller-scale supply and demand management strategies.