India’s water crisis persists not due to lack of policies or resources, but due to institutional fragmentation, short-termism, and the absence of coordination. Without institutional convergence at the national level, water security goals for Viksit Bharat 2047 will continue to be undermined.

Water risk governance lies at the core of India’s water security challenge

The Dialogue acknowledged and agreed that water security is inadequately framed in Indian policy discourse. It neglects water-related risks, particularly floods, droughts, and water quality degradation. Climate change intensifies these risks, making risk management a core governance challenge. The current discourse focuses heavily on “provision and access” (e.g. Jal Jeevan Mission) while neglecting the costs of risks. The forum noted that recent floods in Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh wiped out significant economic value for those specific states, underscoring the high cost of risks.

The abandoned effort to draft the National Water Policy (NWP) is a missed opportunity 

The abandoned effort to draft NWP (2020) is a missed opportunity to address emerging governance challenges, both for water resources development and in coping with risks. It also could have addressed the most crucial element missing in the earlier efforts of national water policymaking – to articulate institutional pathways and mandates for translating and implementing policies, especially given the crucial challenge of Centre-State coordination.

Interstate nature of river water governance 

Although nearly all Indian river basins are interstate, water governance continues to operate assuming water is exclusively a State subject. This operational practice deviates from constitutional intent and undermines the Centre’s role and responsibility in addressing extraterritorial and trans-jurisdictional water risks. Over successive planning periods, the Centre has progressively withdrawn from direct investment and asset ownership in water infrastructure. States now dominate capital expenditure and project control, leaving the Centre with limited influence, confined largely to dispute resolution and advisory roles.

Interstate water dispute mechanisms focus exclusively on allocation shares, treating water as divisible property rather than a resource requiring efficient deployment. Excessive reliance on laws and a lack of investment in institutions have been a bane in interstate coordination. India’s interstate bodies and commissions remain project-driven, politically contingent, and very often bilateral rather than institutionalised. The River Boards Act, 1956 has never been operationalised, and existing institutions lack the legal authority to enforce holistic planning or sustain long-term cooperation.

Fragmentation across Union Ministries is a structural barrier

Water-related functions are dispersed across multiple union ministries — Jal Shakti (MoJS), Power (MoP), Agriculture (MoA&FW), Ports & Shipping (MoPSW), without an effective coordination mechanism. This fragmentation prevents integrated basin-level decision-making and creates institutional dissonance, especially in multi-purpose projects concerning storage, hydropower, navigation, and flood management. For instance, in basins such as the Brahmaputra, original storage-oriented flood and water management projects have been converted into run-of-the-river hydropower projects due to sectoral dominance by power institutions. This shift fundamentally alters basin outcomes and sidelines water security objectives in favour of revenue generation.

Sub-national water governance is trapped in short-termism

State-level water decision-making is shaped by short political and fiscal cycles. Long-gestation water projects are pursued without adequate assessment of debt sustainability, long-term efficiency, or future intergenerational impacts. The focus remains on building new infrastructure rather than optimising existing allocation. Besides, the subnational water resources institutions have deeply entrenched cultures driven by supply augmentation with limited or institutional internationalisation of demand management.

Absence of an effective apex coordinating mechanism is a core governance gap

While bodies such as the National Water Resources Council (NWRC) exist, they are dormant and ineffective. The Dialogue identifies the absence of a technocratic–bureaucratic apex coordination mechanism as the single most critical institutional gap preventing convergence across ministries, sectors, and time horizons.

India’s water storage capacity remains structurally inadequate and institutionally undervalued

Some experts argued that with India having only ~300 BCM of storage against a potential of 450 BCM, creating more storage is essential to buffer against the changing water cycles caused by climate change. Despite being a monsoon-dependent country with high flood and drought variability, India has failed to build and protect adequate strategic water storage, particularly in water-surplus basins such as the Northeast; storage-oriented projects have been repeatedly diluted or converted into run-of-the-river hydropower projects due to sectoral and institutional fragmentation, leaving the country unable to mitigate climate risk, regulate flows, or secure long-term water availability.