This chapter focuses on regulations, policies, and laws developed in India to deal with water quality and water pollution over the last seven decades. It traces the roots of the historical developments of regulatory and legal measures and chalks out the fundamental systemic challenges, such as weak institutions, ambiguous and conflicting goals, procedural inefficiencies, lack of coordination among institutions, and shifting goals, which create hurdles in the development of an effective regulatory and legal system to deal with water pollution and water quality concerns. In addition, the chapter discusses the emerging regulatory, judicial, and legal responses which are being devised to deal with the existing and emerging issues and challenges relating to water pollution and water quality regulation.
Sharma, A. (2024). Water Quality and Water Pollution. In P. Cullet, L. Bhullar, & S. Koonan (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Natural Resources Law in India (1st ed., pp. 611–630). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198884682.013.35