Improving productivity and incomes in rainfed areas is a major challenge in India, and a key to achieving this is improving the use of land and water which are the principal constraints in these areas. A major initiative through which this is pursued in India is Watershed Development (WSD) programs which have been taken up under different schemes funded by the Government of India and the state governments. Since poverty is particularly acute in the rainfed areas, large expenditures to the tune of about US$ 500 million per year are being made on WSD programs. A hierarchy of complex institutional arrangements of the government and other bodies undertakes the planning and implementation of WSD to the district and village levels. Institutional weaknesses are a significant challenge and often lead to poor implementation and results. The paper develops a conceptual framework for the study of institutional setups in the implementation of watershed development programmes. It uses the theoretical fundamentals of new institutional economics, and concepts of organizational design and governance from management sciences. It related these to observations from six in-depth case studies of watershed development projects in state of Andhra Pradesh, India which has the largest number of such projects. The framework that emerges may be useful for examining the institutional setups and performance of watershed development activities in various areas, as well as the better design of the institutional setups for watershed and other development programmes in India and elsewhere.