SPECIAL ARTICLE

Translating Watershed Guidelines on the Ground

Exploring the Implementation Gap
Floriane Clement, Suvarna Chandrappagari

While learning from the successes of Andhra Pradesh in

implementing national watershed development
programmes, this paper argues that national-level
guidelines must provide incentives to state government
machinery and allow for some context-specific
modifications in order to achieve the larger goal of
effective localised water management. The government
needs to move away from a purely technocratic
top-down approach to a more flexible and innovative
implementation of policy.

Acknowledgements to Anil Philip and N Polappa for support in data

collection and Madar Samad, Tushaar Shah and Mark Giordano for their
guidance. This study was part of the ACIAR-funded project
LWR/2006/158 with La Trobe University and IIM Ahmedabad as partners.
Floriane Clement (f.clement@cgiar.org) is a researcher in
Institutional and Policy Analysis, International Water Management
Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal. Suvarna Chandrappagari (suvarnac@
yahoo.com) is Special Commissioner (Watersheds), Department of Rural
Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh.
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o what extent policymakers can anticipate gaps in implementation is a long-standing debate in political science (OToole Jr 2000). A dominant premise among
governments, international-aid agencies and scholars is that
policy implementation is a rational process and shortcomings
stem from managerial or political weaknesses. In this view,
policy failures can be addressed by designing better institutions, i e, rules, norms and strategies (Crawford and Ostrom
1995). This perspective however, tends to follow a top-down
and linear vision of the policy process, according to which
implementation would neatly succeed to policy design and
individual behaviour would rationally follow the set of incentives given. Scholars from political science, sociology and
anthropology have long provided evidence that the reality is
far more complex (Sutton 1999).
Watershed development (WSD) programmes in India offer a
remarkable example of long-term institutional refinement
aimed at reducing the policy implementation gap. Numerous
guidelines were published since WSD programmes became a
nationwide initiative in the 1970s, with the latest revision issued in 2011 (Shah 2013). This series of revisions reflects the
lasting belief that WSD programmes are a promising policy instrument for livelihood improvement and natural resource
conservation in the rainfed regions of India, but which have
not yet delivered on their promises due to institutional flaws.
Yet the need for a new institutional model has given rise to a
polarised debate which has opposed policy design to policy
implementation (Reddy 2006; Shah 2006).
This paper aims at shedding new light on this debate by
linking institutional change to outcomes in the case of the
Common Guidelines for Watershed Development Projects
2008. Institutions here are distinguished from organisations
and defined as ...the prescriptions that humans use to organise all forms of repetitive and structured interaction including
those within families, neighbourhoods, markets, firms, sports
leagues, churches, private associations, and governments
at all scales (Ostrom 2005: 3). Institutions can be formal
or informal, for example laws and guidelines issued by
central or state governments or implicit norms prevailing in
the bureaucracy.
Contrary to most works on institutions for common-pool
resource management, the study does not aim at assessing
whether the proposed policy/institutional change fits with
the local socioecological system considered but about how
it gets transformed through the messy process of policy
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implementation. We are analysing the factors and processes

that have created gaps between some of the vision and institutions provided by the Common Guidelines and their implementation on the ground. Whereas some of these factors and
processes have been identified in previous studies, our understanding has remained fragmented and dispersed across
organisations and disciplines. Drawing from institutional
analysis and development studies, we propose an original
rigorous analytical framework and apply it to the case study
of the implementation of the Common Guidelines and the
Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) in
Andhra Pradesh (AP).
Methodology

This study combines quantitative and qualitative methods for

data collection and analysis. First, a survey was conducted
among 50 respondents from government agencies and nongovernmental organisations (NGO) involved in project implementation in AP: the government and NGO project implementing agency (PIA), district water management agency (DWMA)
and the state level nodal agency (SLNA). The survey explored
the perceptions of these four groups of respondents on IWMP,
focusing on five of the seven guiding principles defined in the
Common Guidelines: equity and gender sensitivity, decentralisation, centrality of community participation, capacity
building and monitoring, evaluation and learning. The two
other principles, namely, facilitating agencies and organisational restructuring, were considered less relevant to be analysed in the particular case of AP, as they had been implemented in the state for a long time experience which was
actually used to extend these at the national level.
Second, a series of semi-structured interviews was conducted from May to September 2011 with around 40 informants including senior government officers at the central level:
Planning Commission, Department of Land Resources (DOLR),
National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA); at the state level:
Department of Rural Development (DRD), Forest Department
and Department of Agriculture; and at the district level: the
district water management agency. Informants also included
non-government and government project implementing agencies, scientists, civil servants and government-contracted
project staff posted in three districts of AP (Table 1).
Primary data was complemented by a review of secondary
data, including scientific reports, journal articles, government
circulars, presentations, minutes of meetings of the National
Level Steering Committee, etc. The analysis of qualitative data

was supported by the software ATLAS Ti, which is useful to

manage, code and analyse large bodies of textual data.
Contextualising Institutions

WSD Programme: The 2008 Common Guidelines were

released after a relatively participatory and inclusive consultation process led with multiple stakeholders all over the country. In the survey and during interviews, most informants
stated that the Common Guidelines represented a substantive
improvement compared to previous guidelines. Notably, survey respondents overall felt that the five guiding principles
previously mentioned had been given more importance in
IWMP compared to the previous WSD programmes. The guidelines therefore mark an institutional change that is perceived
as legitimate, relevant and effective.
However, during interviews, many informants expressed
caution on how the guidelines would get translated on the
ground: When the guidelines were there, we had great hopes
that the programme would take off in a very influential and
different state (). Actually what happened, on the ground
nothing has changed (interview Planning Commission, 2011);
There is always going to be gaps between policy and implementation (interview state level government officer, 2011).
Many informants expressed that this implementation gap
does not really result from poorly designed institutions/guidelines but is rather something out of policymakers control, for
example: All was planned meticulously, but there were many
gaps (interview state level government officer, 2011).
Increasingly, institutional scholars have recognised that the
way policy change gets translated on the ground depends on
multiple external factors, often loosely coined as context
(Clement and Amezaga 2013). The importance of context is
particularly evident in India, where one can easily observe
how states follow different directions to implement the same
watershed programme according to the same set of national
guidelines. For instance, the states have different administrative systems for implementing IWMP. In Odisha and Karnataka,
it is operated by an exclusive watershed department, whereas
it falls under the responsibilities of the Department of Rural
Development in AP. The next subsection brielfy presents some
of the theoretical underpinnings that were used as a basis to
develop the analytical framework.
Institutional Change: A great deal of scholarship exploring
institutional performance assumes that the right policy will

Table 1: Organisations Met for Interviews and Number of Informants

Decision-making Unit

IWMP Implementing Agencies

Others

Number of Informants

Project

Government PIAs,
NGO PIAs
DWMA, cluster livelihood resource centre
DRD, Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development (APARD),
NGO PIAs

Four group interviews in

two districts
Eight across three districts
Nine

District
State

National

54

DoLR, NRAA

Forest Department, Department of

Agriculture, key informants previously
involved in WSD programmes at the DRD,
Research organisations
Planning Commission, Department of
Agricultural Cooperation
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Five
Three
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Framework: The framework of analysis

for this study builds on the Institutional
Analysis and Development (IAD) framework (Kiser and Ostrom 1982; Ostrom et
al 1994; Ostrom 1999), which stands out
as one of the most refined and popular
frameworks for policy analysis. The IAD
framework was recently modified to include the role of context (Clement and
Discourses
Amezaga 2013). It was further revised to
fit the needs of the study, notably by representing the actors embedded within
organisations (Figure 1).
The actors form the core analytical
component at each institutional level.
Their decisions are affected by three variables: organisation, discourses and the
political-economic context. The framework includes multiple levels of decisionmaking, called institutional levels.
This allows analysing the cascade of decisions that are taken by actors. Only three levels are shown in
Figure 1 for the purpose of clarity.
Each variable can be decomposed into two sub-variables. For
instance, the variable actors is unpacked as the following
sub-variables: beliefs, values, interests, power and capacity.
Some of these variables are affected by external factors, for instance, discourses directly affect actors beliefs and power. The
political-economic context affects actors interests and power.
Similarly, the variable organisation can be decomposed
into: beliefs, capacity, interests, institutions, power and values. The latter are also affected by external factors. What distinguishes the organisation from the actor is that organisations have their own institutions. Of particular interest to this
study are the rules and norms prevailing within the bureaucratic system.
We chose the Common Guidelines 2008 as the policy intervention of interest. The guidelines are a set of institutions and
discourses which aim at providing the right incentives and
vision for guiding actors decisions for the implementation of
IWMP. This analytical framework was used to track how the
Common Guidelines were translated from the central level to
the project level in AP and which processes have contributed to
the implementation gap.

Figure 1: Framework Used for the Analysis of the Gaps between Guidelines and Outcomes
INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL 1

INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL 2
CENTRAL GUIDELINES
Project Rules-in-Use and Discourses

PoliticalEconomic
Context
Actors

Organisation

Project Rules-in-Use and Discourses

INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL...N

OUTCOMES

lead to the right outcomes by providing the right set of incentives for policy implementers. Such a view tends to focus
on policy objectives and design of institutions solely to
achieve these objectives without acknowledging the broader
social reality in which institutions function. Recent discussions on the types of contextual factors affecting institutional
change highlighted the role of the political-economic context
in shaping power distribution and actors interests and of
dominant policy discourses (Clement 2010; Clement and
Amezaga 2013).
By discourse, we mean a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorisations that is produced, reproduced, and
transformed in a particular set of practices and through which
meaning is given to physical and social realities (Hajer 1995:
60). Discourses frame and define environmental problems and
their solutions in specific ways (ibid). For instance, discourses
on water productivity herald efficiency as the main goal and,
as a result, related interventions have often disregarded issues
of equity (Venot and Clement forthcoming). Discourses play
an important role by providing or undermining the legitimacy
of institutional change.
Lastly, institutions get transformed in order to achieve
organisational objectives. In his in-depth ethnographic analysis of a development project in western India, Mosse (2005)
brilliantly evidences that interventions are not driven by
official policy but by the exigencies of organisations and the
need to maintain relationships. For instance, in this case
study, bureaucratic procedures resulted in delay in payment
and evaluation of structures ultimately eroding trust between project staff and farmers. It also affected the choice of
activities towards less risky options with little or no form of
collective action. Project interventions were reduced to a
fixed menu of technologies that could show quick results and
this standardisation ultimately hampered the quality of
participation processes.
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Case Study of IWMP in AP

Failure and Success: To analyse the gaps between policy intentions and outcomes, we need first to define what is a success and a failure. The latter are usually measured as the
achievement or non-achievement of predefined targets and indicators. Yet critical works from development studies have
highlighted the importance of looking beyond initial targets
and expected outcomes and to assess the effects of the
effects (Lund 2010: 23). It is common that development and
environment projects achieve the project targets but result in
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imbalances within communities by strengthening patronage

networks, encouraging corruption and tacitly excluding specific social groups from participating (Baviskar 2004).
Under the IWMP, the National Monitoring and Information
System on Water Resource (NMISWR) defines five categories of
outcomes: employment, water, vegetation/crop, livelihood
and marketing-related outcomes. These outcomes are to be
measured through a predefined format to be filled in by the
district Watershed Cell cum Data Centre with little room for
understanding how these outcomes have been reached, what
social processes have led to the observed figures (for example
migration before/after the project) and the secondary impacts
of watershed management interventions.

unexpected (positive or negative) impacts, many of which

were never assessed or even identified as they were outside of
the scope of conventional monitoring and evaluation systems.
For instance, in her study of a sanitation project in a village
of Rajasthan, OReilly (2006) observed that for the Jat households, the project was a success the newly installed sanitation
facility represented an improvement in their status. However,
from the perspective of the organisation that intervened, the
project was a failure as it did not result in a change in hygiene
habits the new latrines represented a status symbol, and were
not used by the village inhabitants, but reserved for guests.
In his study of a donor-funded project in western India,
Mosse (2005) also remarked that the project-induced reconfiguration of local relationships of patronage can contribute to
livelihood improvement to a greater extent than the wellcrafted policy models of participation or microfinance. These
examples make it quite clear that: (1) assessing success and
failure requires integrating perspectives from different stakeholders and social groups; and (2) measuring outputs and indicators needs to be complemented by a thorough understanding of the social processes that have led to observed outcomes.
A wide range of studies have assessed the impacts of WSD
programmes in India (Reddy 2000) and identified some of the
factors affecting their performance (Rao, C H H 2000; Reddy
2000). Most of these studies have defined success as an increase in crop yields, in groundwater recharge and farmers
incomes, or a decrease in migration, based on village-level
data (Kalpaturu Research Foundation 2001). Some have also
included institutional indicators (Palanisami, Kumar and
Wani 2009), but most have concealed the social processes in
play and the unequal distribution of benefits among individuals or social groups within the communities.
A few other studies have critically looked at so-called successes by closely examining who has benefited and who has
lost from WSD interventions (Kerr 2002; Baviskar 2004;
Chhotray 2007; Calder et al 2008). Some have argued that in
some states, the success of government programmes has been
engineered through a careful selection of villages where risks
of resistance or contestation are low (Baviskar 2004; Chhotray
2007), the choice of physically measurable targets achievable
within a short time frame and the coalition of local government officers and a few village entrepreneurs to demonstrate
visible success to external visitors (Baviskar 2004). What has
not been officially measured or assessed is how many WSD programmes have reinforced existing inequalities and power

Context in AP: Policymakers in AP identified water and watershed management as a priority early on (Reddy, Reddy and
Soussan 2009). This focus has been largely justified by the regional agro-ecological and climatic conditions. The climate in
AP is characteristic of semi-arid tropics with erratic rainfall.
The normal annual rainfall is 940 mm on average for the state
but some areas receive less than 600 mm per year (Gupta et al
2011), like in Anantapur district, the second driest district in
India. The economic situation also brought agricultural water
management to the fore in the 1980s-1990s, as the growth rate
of the agricultural sector was merely 2% (Sivanna et al 2007),
a performance qualified as poor and largely below its potential
(Rao and Dev 2003). As around 70% of the cultivable land is
rainfed (Gupta et al 2011), watershed management has appeared as one of the most promising options to improve agricultural productivity in the state.
AP has been deemed as relatively successful in terms of WSD
implementation (Springate-Baginski et al 2001; Reddy et al
2004). For some observers, success has meant the ability to attract and spend the largest budget, to implement the greatest
number of projects or to cover the largest area. In the mid1990s, AP indeed held the largest share in nationwide WSD
programs in India (Rao, C H H 2000), which is true even today.
Almost 6,800 projects have been sanctioned before and after
the Hariyali guidelines,1 under the Drought Prone Areas
Programme (DPAP), the Desert Development Programme
(DDP) and the Integrated Wasteland Development Programme
(IWDP) (Table 2). These three programmes have had similar
objectives but differ slightly in terms of funding arrangements.
Among other significant initiatives, the state led a 10-year
long massive programme for development of all degraded

Table 2: Implementation of WSD Programmes in AP

Programme
Years of Implementation

DDP
1995 to 1999

2000 to 2007

Funder

GoI/State

(ratio)*

(75:25)

Number of WSD projects sanctioned

Number of districts covered
Unit cost (Rs/ha)

4,500

1995 to 1999

DPAP
2000 to 2007

GoI/State
(50:50)

(75:25)

IWDP
1995 to 1999

2000 to 2007

GoI/State
(100:0)

APRLP
1999-2007

DFID

(90:10)

4,242

1,499

500

11

19

5
6,000

4,000

6,000

4,000

GoI/State

(91.7:8.3)

1,054
6,000

6,000

IWMP
2009-onwards

454
12
12,000 or 15,000 in
DDP/AAP districts

*If the state does not release the required matching grant after the central share is released, the next instalment funds from the Government of India get held up.
In addition, 2,000 DDP and DPAP schemes got funded under Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Programme (APRLP).
Source: Department of Rural Development, AP.

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lands in AP, initiated in 1997. An action plan was designed for

this programme to develop 10 million hectares (ha) of land by
2007, at the rate of 1 million ha a year. Five years later, about
2.7 million ha were covered making this plan one of the
most significant of its kind in India (Sivanna et al 2007). In
2001, the Government of AP also created the Water Conservation Mission and launched the Neeru-Meeru campaign (Water
and You) to create awareness and provide incentives for
citizens to save water.
In addition to the scale at which the Government of AP has
implemented WSD programmes, it has also been recognised as
one of the most progressive states in implementing the WSD
guidelines, in recognition of the high priority that has been
given to livelihood, gender and capacity building. Remarkably,
the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Programme (APRLP), an
initiative supported by the DFID, is known for having successfully brought focus on enhancing the livelihoods of the landless and women at a time when the projects conducted under
government programmes mainly targeted male landowning
elites of the villages.
The APRLP strongly influenced the design of the AP WSD
process guidelines in 2002, notably regarding its livelihood
focus (Reddy, Reddy and Soussan 2009). It has been considered ahead of national government watershed programmes in
terms of integrating livelihood-related activities and capacity
building. The experiences from APRLP, along with others such
as Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra, contributed to the integration of two components in the IWMP livelihoods for the assetless, production systems enhancements and micro-enterprises. Although APRLP has been completed and government
officers have changed, learning has been institutionalised to
some extent and AP still benefits today from a certain legacy of
APRLP: if we compare AP with other states, it is much better
in terms of understanding of productivity enhancement and
entry-point activities (interview with NGO, May 2011).
Despite this relative success, respondents from both nongovernment and government agencies underlined the limitations of previous programmes, particularly the lack of sustainability of interventions: NGOs are not satisfied with the impact
(of previous WSD programmes). Because post-maintenance,
nothing is happening. People have lifted all the stones from
most structures. All the check dams are broken down... (interview with NGO, July 2011); One thing where I find that
there are probably gaps, is in mobilising community effort in
sustaining the structures (check dams) (interview with government officer, Department of Rural Development AP, June
2011). The next section focuses on the factors that have enabled institutional innovation in the way AP has implemented
WSD programmes.
Institutional Innovation in AP

Organisations: AP enjoyed some institutional freedom to

adapt the guidelines and adopt a more livelihood-oriented
objective. For instance, in terms of institutional creativity, AP
was the first state to set up in 2001 dedicated agencies for WSD
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project implementation at the district level, the DWMAs a

feature which was then acknowledged as instrumental in the
delivery of WSD programmes by the technical committee in
2006, and heralded as one of the guiding principles of the
2008 Common Guidelines. Institutional innovation was
allowed by the distance the government of AP had maintained
with the centre, particularly under the Telugu Desam Party
(Baumann 1998). Innovation was also possible on the ground,
thanks to the interest of local NGOs to participate in WSD
projects and work together with the government (ibid).
Institutional innovation and the livelihood focus were also
fostered by foreign aid, notably from the World Bank and DFID,
which supported the integration of new ideas and the emergence of new projects such as APRLP. AP was again unique in
being able to directly attract large amounts of foreign aid at
that time, which some observers attribute to the relative openness of the government of AP to new ideas (Reddy, Reddy and
Soussan 2009). Foreign aid also contributed to exert pressure
on the performance of the bureaucracy and to support the governance reforms initiated by the chief minister N Chandrababu
Naidu, who was in power from 1996 to 2004 (Manor 2007).
Actors: The political leadership and vision of the latter are
also said to have played a role in the performance of WSD institutions (Rao, B 2004). According to some scholars, his reforms
enhanced the transparency and accountability of the bureaucracy, resulting in relatively good governance and effective administration (Baumann 1998). Political leadership also supported the recruitment of skilled professionals by granting a
relative freedom to the line departments in their selection
process. Good relationships between the different levels of the
bureaucracy eased the flow of funds and information.
Discourses: Policy discourses in AP emphasised water scarcity
as a key policy issue and supported a strong political commitment to improve water management. Discourses therefore
largely legitimised the rationale for WSD and provided political
support to bureaucrats at the state and district level.
Political-Economic Context: Lastly, the political context was
an important factor affecting the implementation of watershed programmes in AP, particularly from 1996 to 2004 under
the Telugu Desam Party. The latter was said to be more hostile
to decentralisation than any other state government in India at
that time. Panchayati Raj institutions were indeed substantially disempowered in AP in the mid-1990s at the expense of
community-based organisations and notably womens selfhelp groups (Manor 2007).
To sum up, the combination of political leadership with a
particular vision of development and a relatively accountable
bureaucracy contributed to institutional innovation and the
development of new ideas and vision within watershed development programmes and also allowed a rapid uptake of central funds. With this historical context in mind, we will now
examine the implementation of the 2008 Common Guidelines
and IWMP in AP.
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Building Social Capital in IWMP

Central to State Level: Because it would take more than one

paper to explore the multiple gaps between policy and practice
in the case of WSD programmes, we chose to focus on a very
specific example. Building social capital was identified in the
national study conducted in 2006 by the Parthasarathy Committee as a major factor that differentiated successful and
failed projects (interview, Planning Commission, 2011) and
more generally in academic literature as a key tenet of sustainability. Based on this finding the Common Guidelines allocated
specific time and funds for the project implementing agency to
establish a trust relationship with communities. An overall period of one to two years was reserved for this preparatory
phase to conduct entry project activities and to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) as the main output. How the preparation of the DPR has been translated from the central level to
the project level in AP is what we will explore in this section.
Discourses: The first gap that occurred in translating the
guidelines is a discursive gap between the vision of the DPR as
a process to build social capital and the understanding and
discourses of the DOLR. The DOLR has perceived the DPR as a
technical and an administrative exercise with fixed and predefined targets: These states are performing well: they are preparing the DPR very scientifically (interview, DOLR, September 2011). For the DOLR, the DPR is also a requirement that indicates whether they can release funds to the SLNA: We just
check that the DPR is prepared as per the guidelines, if it conforms, then we release the funds (interview, DOLR, September 2011). Such vision and discourses tend to focus attention
on the measurable output of the DPR (i e, technical and administrative requirements) rather than on the processes that led to
the DPR (building social capital).
Actors: Second, even if the DOLR staff had an in-depth understanding of the processes necessary to build social capital,
their organisational capacity does not allow them to go beyond
purely administrative management. This is partly because
the central nodal level agency that was originally envisioned
has not been established so far, hence the same staff who have
been working on earlier watershed programmes had to add
IWMP to their tasks. All in all, only three programme officers
and one joint secretary are in charge of overseeing the implementation across the country. Even if many responsibilities
have been delegated to the states, the low capacity at the central level has affected the quality of the strategy and monitoring, for example in terms of assessing the capabilities of state
implementation and fund absorption. The DOLR acts more as a
policeman by putting pressure for incurring expenditure, asking for proposals for the next releases or for progress reports
than playing a supportive role. When the states face policy
issues in implementation, the central government could rather
advise or facilitate interaction among the states to share experiences. Furthermore, such arrangements do not favour flexible, context-sensitive and adaptive management, where each
58

states targets could be revised and new projects sanctioned

based on the context and the states performance.
DoLR and NRAA: Third, from an institutional perspective,
administrative management is in any case the role that has
been assigned to the DOLR officers. Two other organisations
could fulfil the advisory, supportive and coordinating roles:
the NRAA and the national level steering committee. However,
their influence is limited. NRAAs role vis--vis the DOLR is not
clear and according to our interviews, the organic link between these two organisations is not strong enough to build
synergies. Interviews also evidenced that the NRAA has very
little power in the sense of influence over the decisions of
the DOLR. What is more, the NRAA is composed of natural scientists and does not include any social science experts who
could advise on activities related to community participation
and building social capital.
Rules-in-Use: The guidelines however, do play an important
role in defining the way IWMP is implemented by assigning a
role and responsibilities to different organisations and the relationship between national level organisations and the SLNA.
The national level steering committee is largely controlled by
the DOLR and whereas it includes representatives of the civil
society and social activists, some of the latter feel that they do
not have a voice (known through personal communication,
September 2011). Current institutional arrangements considerably hinder the exchange of views and ideas between the
DOLR and other bodies, and the advisory role that other bodies
could play to support programme implementation.
There is also no institutional mechanism that supports sociallysensitive feedback on field-level implementation: every piece of
information transmitted from the state to the DOLR and to the
national level steering committee comes in a specific format,
predefined by the NRAA/DOLR. Whereas norms are undoubtedly
necessary for compiling and synthesising information, other
communication means, which leave space for discussion and
allow for context sensitive information are also necessary for
intelligent learning. Yet the meetings of the national level
steering committee are driven by administrative objectives, dominated by the DOLR and do not provide a forum to share knowledge and experiences (interviews, May and September 2011).
To sum up, the set of discourses and institutions generated
at the central level follow a technocratic approach, driven by
the DOLRs capacity and by the current institutional arrangements that have been set up to manage and supervise the programme at the central level. After exploring the action arena
at the central level, let us examine how the types of discourse
and rules generated at this level have translated in AP and
which factors have affected decisions at the state level.
From State to Project Level

Central Guidelines: A driving factor in how incentives translate at the state level is the type of interaction between the
DOLR and the states. Institutional analysts would define it as a
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principal-agent (i e, boss-subordinate) relationship. Although

much decision-making has been decentralised to the states,
the DOLR controls fund release and, together with the NRAA, is
responsible for policy change at the national level. Therefore,
the DOLR holds considerable power and fixes the rules according to which the states have to implement IWMP.
Context: Within this institutional framework, relationships
between the DOLR and the states do however largely vary
depending on the historical and political-economic context. In
the case of AP, the Department of Rural Development has
developed, over time, a particular relationship with the DOLR
thanks to a range of political-economic factors presented earlier. Compared to other states, the Department of Rural Development of AP has more freedom to deviate and experiment, as
long as they satisfy the DOLRs requirements regarding physical
and financial progress (interview, government officer, June
2011). They have gained certain legitimacy through the leadership they have demonstrated in earlier WSD programmes.
According to informants, this leadership has itself resulted
partly from progressive individuals at the higher level of the
state bureaucracy and privileged individual connections
between the DOLR and AP during earlier programmes. The AP
government also differed from some other state governments
by accepting that large funds could be channelled directly from
the central government to the district agencies (interview,
government officer, June 2011).
The SLNA, initially asked the project implementing agencies to prepare the DPR s in a relatively short time. But when
some of the NGOs explained that they needed more time, the
SLNA considered their request positively. This outcome could
happen specifically in AP because of multiple interrelated factors. First, AP is characterised by a strong civil society with
which the Department of Rural Development has developed
good relationships with, thanks to the APRLP experience.
Furthermore, NGO respondents appreciated the capacity of
the higher level officials from the Department of Rural Development and Commissionerate of Rural Development, who
understand the situation, are solution oriented and hold
certain values such as commitment (interviews, June 2011).
Lastly, because of the history of AP on WSD programmes, the
SLNA in AP might feel less pressure from the DOLR to deliver
the DPR s than other states.
Discussion

The factors that have influenced the understanding and transposition of the DPR from the national guidelines to the project
level are likely to differ across states. Whereas the involvement
of the civil society in the implementation of IWMP has had a
great influence on the project outcomes, it does not mean that
every state should involve NGOs in programme implementation. In some areas, there might not be NGOs with a sufficient
capacity to implement the programme, or NGOs might be politicised to the point that it could jeopardise the programme.
Institutional scholars have recently warned against the
design and implementation of blueprints and institutional
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March 29, 2014

vol xlIX no 13

panaceas, that is overly simplified institutional prescriptions

(Ostrom and Cox 2011: 451). Similarly, the guidelines need to
be adopted in a way that best fits a states requirement, existing administrative strengths or weaknesses and the political,
socio-economic and cultural context.
What is most remarkable in APs experience is probably that
AP has treated the national watershed guidelines as guidelines
in the true sense, as an overarching institutional framework
which has been tailor-made for meeting interests and demands
in the state. In the past, the Government of AP amended the
1994 guidelines and even developed its own process guidelines in 2002 to operationalise the Hariyali guidelines according to its own vision (Reddy, Reddy and Soussan 2009). As a
result, APs top-down model with a bottom-up approach to
watershed development has been termed unique by many
researchers and observers (Reddy 2006).
Being innovative, however, might come at a cost, especially if
innovation is not encouraged and acknowledged. Involving NGOs
in the programme has had a non-negligible administrative cost
for the Department of Rural Development of AP: overall, the NGO
project implementing agencies have failed to meet the physical
and financial targets required by the DOLR and have not been able
to stick to the work activities as proposed in project DPRs. This
arises from the coexistence of distinct organisational norms between NGOs and the bureaucracy, as was pointed out by one of
the NGO project implementing agencies, Our staff is working
for five days a week, whereas district agencies are working round
the week, hence we are not able to submit required reports to
them on time especially when asked during weekends.
NGOs also tend to give more importance to processes and
have to meet their own organisational targets regarding monitoring and evaluation. Third, the high staff turnover among NGO
project implementing agencies has also adversely affected the
progress of project implementation. Lastly, some NGOs are not
accepted by local communities, who think that some external
factor is introduced into the system which could thwart their
command over project implementation. Giving space to NGOs
in the implementation of IWMP has therefore required extra
efforts from the commissionerate of rural development as well
as a constant justification to the DOLR and high level state
government officers on slow administrative progress.
Conclusions

The need to contextualise the institutional performance of

WSD projects in a broader political, social, economic and environmental context has been underlined by a few scholars
earlier (Baumann 1998; Baviskar 2004; Reddy, Reddy and
Soussan 2009). This paper aimed at further contributing to
this debate by unravelling the various factors and processes
that create gaps between the national watershed guidelines
and practices, using an original framework.
This analysis has underlined the importance of the role of the
central level organisations which are coordinating, monitoring
and evaluating IWMP not only in providing the right vision and
incentives to the states and lower decision-making levels
to implement the programme as envisioned in the Common
59

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Guidelines, but also in acknowledging the different capacities

of the states to implement the programme and rewarding their
efforts to innovate or go beyond the achievements of bureaucratic objectives.
We hope that this analytical frame can be used to support
the development of ad-hoc support to various states across
Note
1

The most remarkable change is that in the preHariyali period, i e, before 2003-04, the village
government did not have any role in WSD programmes, whereas after the Hariyali guidelines, the village government head acted as
chairman of the watershed committee.

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Forum, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12002

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October 26, 2013
Paid Domestic Work: Making Sense of the Jigsaw Puzzle

Neetha N

Housing, Homes and Domestic Work: A Study of Paid

Domestic Workers from a Resettlement Colony in Chennai

Karen Coelho,
T Venkat, R Chandrika

Living in Domesti-City: Women and Migration for

Domestic Work from Jharkhand

Neha Wadhawan

Bargaining over Wages: Part-time Domestic Workers in Kolkata Nilanjana Sengupta, Samita Sen
Organising Domestic Workers in Pune City

Kiran Moghe

Towards Recognition through Professionalisation:

Organising Domestic Workers in Kerala

Sonia George

Minimum Wages for Domestic Work: Mirroring Devalued Housework

Neetha N

Domestic Work, Unpaid Work and Wage Rates

Kamala Sankaran

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