This book examines the issues of urban governance and local democracy in South India. It is the first comprehensive volume that offers comparative frameworks on urban governance across all states in the region: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The book focuses on governance in small district-level cities and raises crucial questions such as the nature of urban planning, major outstanding issues for urban local governance, conditions of civic amenities such as drinking water and sanitation and problems of social capital in making urban governance work in these states. It emphasizes on both efficient urban governance and effective local democracy to meet the challenges of fast-paced urbanization in these states while presenting policy lessons from their urbanization processes. Rich in empirical data, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, public administration, governance, public policy, development studies and urban studies, as well as practitioners and non-governmental organizations.

This book examines the issues of urban governance and local democracy in South India. It is the first comprehensive volume that offers comparative frameworks on urban governance across all states in the region: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The book focuses on governance in small district-level cities and raises crucial questions such as the nature of urban planning, major outstanding issues for urban local governance, conditions of civic amenities such as drinking water and sanitation and problems of social capital in making urban governance work in these states. It emphasizes on both efficient urban governance and effective local democracy to meet the challenges of fast-paced urbanization in these states while presenting policy lessons from their urbanization processes. Rich in empirical data, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, public administration, governance, public policy, development studies and urban studies, as well as practitioners and non-governmental organizations.

This book addresses the central question in water studies: should drinking water be seen as right or a commodity? If drinking water is a right, what are the roles of the state and local communities? Starting from a theoretical perspective of liberal notion of rights and communitarian concept of participation, and the attempts at linking the two, this book deals with the issue of drinking water as right in rural Karnataka, India. The book presents the empirical findings of primary studies of villages in Bidar District of North Karnataka and Chamaraja Nagar district of Southern Karnataka. The study highlights the problems involved in realizing the right to drinking water at Gram Panchayat (village) level. The study findings address the questions of historical shifts in accessing the drinking water supply and present the problems of access, equity, participation and availability of drinking water for communities at the village level. The study contends that given the ecological, geographical and political-historical circumstances drinking water should be seen as right and only the state can enable the local communities to realise this basic right.