The Department of Rural Development, Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) had in 2011 constituted a Committee on Restructuring of District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) under the chairmanship of Shri V Ramchandran, Chairmen-Emeritus, Centre for Management Development, Thiruvananthapuram with the objective of strengthening and professionalizing DRDA to meet the challenge of rural development in the present context. The committee has now submitted its report which has been put in the MoRD website for comments before a final view is taken.
The Government of Rajasthan (GoR) has recently come up with a strategy for rural sanitation based on its experience of implementing Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in the state. In Rajasthan, TSC was initially launched in four districts in 1999 and scaled up in all the thirty two districts in 2004-05.
The paper begins with listing the importance of water to communities. It then goes on the describe the water crises in South Asia which are exacerbated by high demand, variable supply, and political volatility. The importance of water in all three pillars of sustainable development economic, social and environmental is noted.
IUCN organised a two-day e-flows training workshop in Kathmandu between 5-6 August 2011 that focused on the means of ensuring sufficient water in rivers, for all stakeholders including the environment. This article collates the various presentations made during that workshop, with a short summary of each.