Effectiveness of implementation of surface water policies for for industrialeffluents a comparative study of India and The Netherlands

Environmental policies are developed in response to environmental problems.However, the challenge often lies in the implementation of policies. Faced withthe non-compliance with water policies and regulations for industrial effluents,the challenge is to improve policy implementation process. The reasons for noncompliancecan be many, but one of them is the poor choice of instrumentsselected for policy implementation.The present study reviews the effectiveness of similar implementation tools usedin two fundamentally different situations of implementation of water policies -The Indian system, where it appears to be weak enforcement and poor complianceand the Netherlands system, where it seems to be strict enforcement andmoderately good compliance.To define the effectiveness of policy implementation, a model composed of threeimplementation components was used - Licensing, Compliance and Enforcement.The effectiveness of policy implementation is a function of the effectiveness ofeach of these implementation components. Criteria to define effectiveness weredetermined on the basis of extensive literature review. Also, structured interviewswere conducted with governmental and industrial professionals in both thecountries.From the analysis conducted for India and Netherlands, it was found that withregard to policy implementation, India is performing below average andNetherlands above average. Improvements were suggested to improve theeffectiveness of policy implementation in both countries.It was finally concluded, that strengthening of enforcement, cooperative mode ofworking and capacity building are the important elements to make policyimplementation, with respect to industrial effluents, more effective