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Confronting the Elephant in the Room: Drinking Water Governance Reforms and Diminishing State Capacity in Kerala
Journal
Economic and Political Weekly
ISSN
00129976
Date Issued
2022-10-15
Abstract
More than three decades of reforms in Kerala’s drinking water sector have neither resulted in greater decision-making autonomy nor improved the financial status of public utility. In addition to stymying the devolution of responsibility to local bodies, reforms have critically unsettled the role of the state leading to erosion of institutional capacity in public utility. The greater prominence of non-state players combined with institutional denuding of the state points to an emergent crisis of democratic accountability in the governance of this sector.
Volume
57