Case Name :      Water Crisis in India

Authors :           Gary Clendenen, James F. Booker, Michael A. Card, Raj Devasagayam

Source :             North American Case Research Association (NACRA)

Case ID :            NA0323

Discipline :        Strategy

Case Length :    24 pages

Solution Sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

India had long suffered floods during the monsoons, droughts during the dry seasons, and periodic death causing famines during multi-year droughts. The old canal-based irrigation system developed by the British had crumbled from neglect and wealthier famers had turned to wells. Water shortages were compounded by the rapid population growth in India and water pollution. Dinesh Shindey had been asked by the prime minister to chair a task force to study the social, environmental, technical, and economic aspects of the proposed River Linking Project. It was a massive federal government project that required the construction of 34 new dams, 94 tunnels, and 12,500 kilometers of new canals. Proponents believed it would greatly increase the supply of water, but opponents believed it would never work as designed. Many simply believed that it was impossible to complete such a massive project in corruption plagued India. A former Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources of India named S. Kannan believed that the solution to the water crisis in India lay instead in a decentralized approach based on conservation, the completion of numerous small, decentralized regional and local projects, and in managing the demand for water. After meeting with S. Kannan, Shindey’s task force would write their recommendations in a report that would become a basis for how India would respond. This case presents a complex multicriteria decision problem that requires students to examine the relevant political, economic, cultural, environmental, and legal aspects as related to a wide-ranging mix of stakeholders. Students can assign probabilities and do a decision tree analysis before looking at the situation through the rational, incremental, and garbage can models of decision making. The case illustrates both how carefully humans need to manage natural resources in the face of rapidly growing demand and also how incredibly complex it is to manage such resources in a democratic system.