Businesses related to water may lack the glamour of sunrise sectors like education and healthcare, but it has attracted over 500 crore in private equity in the past year. The trickle will turn into a flood, says Ahona Ghosh. The inability of the state to deliver on basic services has nurtured many a business: inverters and bottled water, to name just two. A third one is beginning to flourish: water purification and waste-water treatment.

In a transparent attempt to offload the responsibility of providing drinking and potable water to the people, the Ministry of Water Resources has said privatisation of water supply is the way forward.

In its draft National Water Policy of 2012 released on Tuesday, the ministry has proposed that the State shift its onus of being a ‘service provider’ to being a ‘facilitator’ for supply of water to citizens.

Having burnt its fingers over the Teesta river water agreement with Bangladesh, that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stalled, the draft National Water Policy (NWP) envisages “consultative association with riparian states” while negotiating such deals over trans-boundary rivers. “Negotiations over sharing and management of water of international rivers should be done on a bilateral basis in consultative association with riparian states, keeping paramount national interest,” the policy says, asking the government to establish appropriate mechanisms at the Centre for this.

An integrated approach to supply and demand side water management is the best response to water stress and climate change, experts from Australia and India pointed out at a panel discussion here on Wednesday.

With the success story of integrated approach in the Murray-Darling basin, the Australian experience in water management is seen as a natural area of collaboration with India.

Besides emphasising on efficiency of water use and ecological needs of rivers, for the first time policy makers have proposed that precious natural resources be considered an “economic good” over and above pre-emptive need. So, while the draft National Water Policy, 2012, talks of water conservation, it also proposes promoting maximisation of value of water, setting up of a regulatory authority to take care of inter-state disputes and adequate water pricing to incentivise recycle and reuse.

Ranchi, Jan. 29: Get prepared to pay an extra buck for quenching your thirst with running tap water.. The drinking water and sanitation department has asked the urban development department to revise water supply taxes — recommending a 40 per cent hike — to recover cost of maintenance of pipelines and other operations. Sources said that the water taxes were last revised in 2006.

BHUBANESWAR: Faced with raw material scarcity, steel producers in Odisha have urged the state government to increase the availability of iron ore and chrome ore by opening all closed mines. Members of All Odisha Steel Federation (AOSF) said most of the steel manufacturing companies were facing closure due to non-availability of adequate raw materials at an "affordable price".