‘Outsourcing supply will see tariffs skyrocketing’

Day Two of the Bangalore World Water Summit saw a parallel summit being organised by Peoples Campaign for Right to Water, which sees a move to privatise water supply in the agenda of such meets.

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.

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.

Slum-dwellers, under the banners of Slum Janandalona and Jilla Kolageri Nivasigala Okkuta, on Tuesday lodged a protest against the move to privatise distribution of drinking water in urban areas, demanding that the Government stop the maintenance and distribution of drinking water by private agencies working on pilot basis.

Pricing of water alone will not solve the problems the planners have to grapple with to ensure its equitable distribution in the country.

According to Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, clarity on property rights to this precious natural resource is a more crucial issue warranting urgent attention.

Dr Ahluwalia said this while delivering the third P. K. Gopalakrishnan lecture at the Centre for Development Studies here recently.

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.

The office of the Water Board was flooded with complaints regarding the tariff hike and the poor quality of water, during the Prajavani programme held in the main office at Khairatabad on Monday. During the two-hour programme, around 70 grievances were collected, a majority of which were regarding the tariff hike. Consumers complained that they were not aware of the increase in tariff and were shocked on receiving such huge bills.