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The main objective of the paper is to estimate the costs of groundwater over exploitation and examine the costs and benefits from groundwater replenishing mechanisms in different ecological contexts. Using the public good and externalities framework, the study shows how groundwater exploitation in Andhra Pradesh, India is resulting in economic losses to individual farmers apart from ecological degradation. It is argued that policies towards strengthening the resource base (replenishment mechanisms) and equitable distribution of the resource (property rights) would be beneficial, economically as well as ecologically.The analysis is in favour of investment in replenishment mechanisms such as irrigation tanks and percolation tanks. The situation of over extraction and the resultant environmental degradation is a consequence of lack of appropriate and adequate policies (policy failure) for managing the subsurface water resources. Hitherto, groundwater policies (subsidized credit, power, etc.) are in the nature of encouraging private initiatives in groundwater development. It is argued that community-based investments in replenishment as well as extraction of groundwater would make better economic as well as ecological sense.

Public policy has often addressed the problems of water supply and sanitation from the supply side to the neglect of demand side aspects in developing countries like India. This policy has not only rendered a large number of projects financially unviable but has also resulted in inadequate coverage of aspects such as population and ecological unsustainability. This article, based on household level information from six villages in a water scarce region of India (Rajasthan state), examines inter‐ and intra‐village variations in water use and the costs, direct and indirect, involved in obtaining water. It also estimates households' willingness and ability to pay for water, using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Using qualitative as well as quantitative methods, it is argued that it is the failure of government policy and of institutions which has led to severe water shortages in harsh environments rather than supply or financial bottlenecks per se. While the estimates of price elasticity of water use indicate the feasibility of water pricing in the rural areas, the willingness to pay estimates question the general assumption that rural households are willing to pay 5 per cent of their income/expenditure for water. Various economic and extra economic factors such as household income, low opportunity costs of women and children, and attitudes towards female labour and public goods are vital in influencing the households' willingness to pay for water.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), since the past decades, has been making conscious efforts to reach out to the unreached with its diverse, need-based and affordable, Open and Distance learning (ODL) programmes and has been experimenting with various innovative ideas and methods to cater to the diverse needs of its prospective learners. The University, realizing its mandate to reach out to the unreached, ventured into educational intervention behind bars in its attempt to empower this marginalised section of the population. This intervention caters to the learning needs of both literate and semi-literate prisoners and is aimed at reformation of under trials as well as convicted prisoners; all expenditure under this initiative being borne by the University. IGNOU's approach, of imparting education to the imprisoned, falls in line with its vision and mission and with the objectives of democratizing higher education; which is the need of time.This paper details the operationalization aspects and status of this initiative of IGNOU. The paper tries to identify the driving forces behind this noble initiative of the University while discussing on the impact of educational intervention of the imprisoned. The paper while discussing on the special/unique skills needed by educators who act as counsellors for jail inmates, stresses on the need for training of such academic counsellors. As rightly said by Skorton and Altschuler, 2013; "Education, offers a humane and effective alternative to the discipline and punish approach, that all too often breeds only hopelessness and recidivismâ€.