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Editorial Neglect of water related issues at the recently-held Copenhagen Summit or COP-15 has sent a wave of simmering discontent among international water groups, including India. Inclusion of water into the agenda of COP-15 would have opened up new vistas of focusing global attention on this burning issue. There is no denying the fact that the effects of climate change on water resources is prone to be among the most devastating consequences of continued global warming pollution. Floods, droughts, water pollution, and other impacts will affect communities across the globe. Vested interests seemed to at work when the draft of climate change treaty was being finalized to ignore the water-related issues out of the draft. It is worth mentioning here that when participants were completing the draft text of climate change treaty in Barcelona in early November 2009; all mentions of water were excluded from the text. This prompted a number of international water groups to stage a “Water Day

Dr Arvind Kumar* *President, India Water Foundation **It is an abridged version of the paper contributed by the author to the All India Seminar on Integrated Water Resources Management held in New Delhi on 22 December 2009 under the aegis of the National Productivity Council in collaboration with Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Water Resources. This paper pleads for the need of introducing social audit mechanism in India’s water sector to help tackle the problems related to water. While doing so, it presents a brief overview of developments leading to the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change held in December 2009 in which issue of water was excluded. Thenceforth it proceeds to briefly appraise the concept of social audit, its essential ingredients, and adoption of social audit in NREGA in Indian context and the need for application of this concept in India’s water sector. Great expectations were anticipated from flurry of hectic diplomatic activities that presaged the convening of