Dr. Satyapriya Rout, Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad (UoH), and his book titled “Social Inequality and Access to Water: Equity, Sustainability and Participation in Rhetoric of Drinking Water reforms in India” has been recently Published by Serials Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.
About the Book
Water scarcity and inequality in its access have emerged as fundamental problems in contemporary times. Investigating the question of social inequality and access to water, this book argues that that water scarcity is far from being a condition of lack of water resources, and unequal access to water is not just mere replication of pre-existing social inequalities. Rather, water scarcity and unequal access to it are found where appropriate institutions for water governance and delivery of water services are missing or weak. The book attempts to examine pertinent questions like what institutions exist for governing drinking water, how do they structure and determine access to water and water service delivery, how accountable and inclusive these institutions are to ensure participation of different groups stakeholders. These pertinent questions are examined in the background of neoliberal reforms of policy and institutions in rural water sector, which supposedly intend to make water service delivery efficient, equitable and sustainable. Instead of considering community participation as given, the book examines how certain institutions succeed in mobilising an otherwise divergent community for collective participation, while others fail in doing so. It highlights that in the absence of institution building from the below, the reform process may produce outcomes which would be contradictory to what reforms aimed at.
About the Author
Satyapriya Rout is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, where he is teaching since 2006. Prior to joining University of Hyderabad, he worked as Lecturer in Sociology at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi from February 2004 to August 2006.
His areas of research interest broadly include environment and natural resource governance focusing on water and forest, environmental movements, decentralised governance and development.
Dr. Rout is the recipient of prestigious Sir Ratan Tata Visiting Fellowship at Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE), London, UK; SSPS Visiting Fellowship at The Institute for Advance Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh, UK; and ICSSR-NRCT Visiting Fellowship at Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
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