Against the System: Implementing a Decentralized Water Management Plan

Abstract

While working for the Consortium for DEWATS (Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems) Dissemination Society—a nonprofit organization otherwise known as CDD India—in December 2017, Rohini Pradeep was tasked with restoring water levels in Mahadevapura Lake in Bengaluru, southern India. CDD India specializes in designing nature-based, decentralized, small-scale systems for sanitation and waste management, which adhere to the United Nations’ Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) related to water, sanitation, and climate change (SDGs 6 and 13). The main government body responsible for the maintenance of the lake, as well as for approval of the proposed design, was pushing for a traditional, complex, one-size-fits-all, electromechanical, and energy-intensive type of equipment as a solution. This threatened CDD India’s involvement in this project as well as its future relations with the government bodies. Pradeep was faced with the dilemma of accepting the solutions requested by the main governing body in order to stabilize relations with the department, even though this would comprise CDD India’s values, or alternatively standing up for the core values of her company and convincing the stakeholders of a different solution. Students will be asked to evaluate the principles of conflict management and, specifically, what a manager should do when the values of their company contrast with proposed plans of the project stakeholders.