Abstract

Ground water, as a resource mired in a nebulous property rights regime in India, presents a perfect example of what Garrett Hardin described as "The Tragedy of the Commons". The legacy of Hardin's exposition has been littered with academic polemics and philosophical debates about the nature of property rights over common pool resources like groundwater and attempts to conjure up the best property regime suited to avoid the 'tragedy' and ensure efficient management and use of such resources. This paper, in an attempt to disentangle the troika of confusions palisading the property rights regime relating to groundwater in India, provides an overview of the existing groundwater regime and traces the gradual ascent of a regulatory property regime. Groundwater occupies a special position of in the Indian context in view of its established relation with the Fundamental 'right to life' guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950. As a consequence thereof, the author suggests a "socially inclusive" structure for groundwater rights through transfer of management rights to local bodies like Panchayats which form the arch of the broader constitutional goal of local self governance- a point which is conspicuous by its absence in the new regulatory regime.