NEW DELHI: "India faces a turbulent water future. Unless dramatic changes are made, and made soon, the way in which the government manages water, India will have neither have the cash to maintain and build a new infrastructure nor the water required for the economy and the people," according to a World Bank draft report.

The Bank is set to increase its loans to India for water-related sectors, including water resources management, irrigation, hydropower and water supply and sanitation, from $200 million to $800 million a year over the next four years. The country's development of water infrastructure is not accompanied by an improvement in governance of water resources and water services, says the report prepared by John Briscoe, country director for Brazil and former senior water adviser for South Asia.

The Bank is expected to finance projects, which couple high-return investment with reform processes and bring knowledge about international good practice to bear on the water challenges facing India. The Bank will recruit staff and consultants who have hands-on knowledge in translating reform principles into results on the ground. "The Indian state water apparatus still shows little interest in the key issues of the management stage: participation, incentives, water entitlements, transparency, entry of the private sector, competition, accountability, financing and environmental quality."

Making a strong case for the construction of mega-dams, the report says that India can store only relatively small quantities of its "fickle rainfall." India can store only about 30 days of rainfall, compared to 900 days in major river basins in arid areas of developed countries.

The broader messages are that the economic ideas of the 1991 economic reforms must be drilled down from the regulatory and financial sectors into the real sectors if India is to have sustainable economic growth.

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