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Water Privatization in India

Dr. Vandana Shiva, President of the Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology

In India, traditionally space, air, water and energy have been viewed as 'incapable of being bound into property relations.' Water has been considered as a sacred common heritage to be nurtured, conserved, used sustainabley and shared equitably. For example in Islam, the 'Sharia' or 'way' originally connoted the 'path to water' (Westcoat 1995) and provides the ultimate basis for 'rights of thirst' that applies to humans and animals. Various cultures have developed numberous creative mechanisms of water management and ownership through collective and consensual decision-making processes ensuring sustainable resource use and equitable distribution, especially in regard to the needs of the poor. Commenting on the share systems for ground water in pre-independent India, the settlement officer in Lahore district said:

It is my experience among natives that in the fair and equitable division of a share they are unequalled by any nationality ……… In the thousands of wells which are studded over the country there are innumerable and minute shares existing in almost every well, that oblige each owner's bullocks to be yoked and unyoked at certain stated times of the night and day, to take the place of or to make room for the cattle of another shareholder……..Disputes or quarrels in such minutiae seldom or ever come to our courts. (Gil Martin 1995)

The tank systems of Karnataka, for example, were managed through community-decision making processes, which included discussions on cropping patterns, water usage, etc. The community would appoint a 'Narganti' - one who knots water - to ensure that each member of the community got enough water and to ensure that no one took undue advantage of their social, financial or political position to get more than his share of this precious resource.

After independence in India as in much of the world, the government made parallel efforts to control, manage, and distribute this precious resource and eventually played a bad dominant role in water allocation. Water became a state subject and policies framed at the national level now have to be passed at the state level.

During the past three decades the government has spent over Rs. 100 billion on developing irrigation facilities and over 1,554 dams of various sizes have been constructed. The World Bank assisted in the development of the Subarnarekha, the Upper Krishna and the Narmada dams, leading to large-scale destruction of the ecology and biodiversity of the regions, and displacement and destruction of the livelihood of millions of people.

The creation of these 'temples of new India' - the dams and basic infrastructure capabilities - improved water management and harvesting, as well the availability and access to utilizable water resources to some extent.

Intensive irrigation shifted the water use technology from tanks and open wells to tube wells, once again with loans from the World Bank. India has more than 17 million energised wells today. The total number of pumps jumped from 4.3 million in 1980-1981 to 9.1 million in 1990-1991. Groundwater has been increasingly exploited to meet agricultural and domestic needs.

Progressive increase in groundwater structures: 1947 to 1997

Source: Looking Back to Think Ahead: Green India 2047, TERI 1998, 48.

Hydrological experts say that there are no fresh water sources to be found any more in the country. Existing ones are being squeezed by the shift in farming from staples to cash crops and population increase. Groundwater, which appeared to be a satisfactory alternative, is also vanishing.

The benefits of the 'water revolution' have not equally reached the entire population. Of the total annual per capita water withdrawal in the country, estimated at 612 cubic meters, 5.94 is used by agriculture and industry, and 18 cubic meters is for domestic use. Only 1140 cu km of water resources have been made utilizable annually out of the total available flow of about 1880 cu km. This has been because the Indian expert policy makers have largely ignored our indigenous low-cost traditional systems of water harvesting, which were small-scale and sustainable and looked after the needs of the local people, particularly the disadvantaged. Instead, the ruling elites of the country adopted western development models that were in operation, centralizing the management and ownership of all resources through the Easement Act and Irrigation Laws. "Proclaiming the absolute right of Government in all natural water," they built large dams and canals which not only irreversibly degraded the environment in some places, but also created new political and social conflicts over water use and ownership, like the inter-sectoral and inter-regional river conflicts.

When the World Bank cursed the Vindhyas

At the stroke of midnight, the omen of Gopipura village trudge 5 km to reach a well. Armed with earthen pitchers, a long rope and a bucket, they sleep near the well in the hope that morning will bring some water for them to carry back home. All the rivulets, checkdams and ponds in the region have dried up.

Water crisis is not new to Bundelkhand in Utter Pradesh. The rocky and sloping terrain cannot store rain water. Nearly 90% of the 2.50 checkdams have been washed away, and the rest dry up even before the onset of summer.

Traditionally, water in this dry region was harvested in choharas, which are small 5-ft deep pits dug all along the banks of dry rivulets, ponds and nullahs. For many years, these were the only sources of water to man and beast in the long dry summer.

In 1973, the World Bank-aided Patha (rocky) Water Scheme was launched. Barring the upper fringes of the hills, the water tanks and pipelines went to seed long ago. Then came hundreds of handpumps, courtesy of the World Bank. But with the water table falling, the handpumps stick out like a sore thumb. The water crisis has given birth to the saying in the region: Gagri na phute, bhale khasam mari jaaye (O God, the earthen pitcher on my head should not fall even if my husband dies at home).
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Source: Edited excerpt from 'Curse of Vindhyas', India Today, May 8, 2000

Some efforts were made to decentralize the management of water through the 73rd Panchayat Raj Amendment Act of 1996, which includes the X1th schedule of Constitution of India. It gave direction to the Central and State Government for the devolution of powers and responsibilities to the Panchayats for the implementation of all schemes for economic justice and social justice, which includes 'drinking water' and 'water ways'. In 1996, the Panchayats also recognized the right of water for the Gram Sabha. However, to date this has not been implemented.

In 1999, the Government (Ministry of Urban Development) and the World Bank held an International seminar on "Private Sector Participation in Urban Water Supply and Sanitation" offering all the shareholders a free stake in the big pie. The Secretary of Ministry of Urban Development, along with the World Bank Operations adviser, announced that a policy paper on private participation would be formulated on water supply and sanitation and his ministry would act as a `clearing house for the projects'. The private sector would also have access to capital markets and could be involved in whole hog or price meal phases. Success of these ventures would depend on generating operational success that could service debt.

The `water and sanitation market' in India

The reforms taking place in the country make India an extremely attractive market for corporations.

• The market in India for pollution control equipment is estimated to be growing around 10-12% per annum. It was estimated that the value of the total Indian environmental market in 1997 was around $5 billion and has grown to about $8 billion by the end of year 2000.
  
• India's current spending on environmental protection is approximately 0.5% of its GNP compared to 1-3% in developed nations. The total environmental market in India was estimated to be around US$8 billion in 2000 and is expected to grow to approximately US $ 13-14 billion by 2005.
  
• The private sector is becoming increasingly involved in implementation of projects on BOOT (Build Own Operate and Transfer) and BOO (Build Own Operate).

The corporate takeover of water

In April 2002, the government of India announced a new water policy based on privatization. This policy was shaped entirely by the World Bank recipes for the water sector.

On June 21, 2002, a privatized water treatment plant was inaugurated at Sonia Vihar in Delhi. The plant, with a capacity for 635 million liters of water, is being designed, built and operated at the cost of 1.8 billion rupees by Degremont, a partner of Suez, the biggest water giant of the world.

Suez operates in 130 countries on five continents and out of the 30 water contracts awarded by the big cities on 1990's water privatization drive, 20 went to the Suez.

On its website, Degremont proudly states "today, the support of Suez enables Degremont to use its know how throughout the world: pumping water, treating and transporting it, collecting, treating and controlling the pollution of waste water are some of the company's oldest skills. This support results in a combination of technical experience and reassuring financial basis, which can be made available to fund construction and operating contracts".

The Water for the Suez-Degremont plant in Delhi will come from Tehri Dam through the Upper Ganga Canal up to Muradnagar in Uttar Pradesh and then through a 3.25 meter-diameter pipe to Delhi.

The capital of Tehri is being drowned and more than a 100,000 people have been displaced by the Dam, which cost thousands of crores to build. As far back as 1994, a budget of Rs. 6000 crores had been earmarked for it. The figure must have escalated substantially since then. Moreover, the Dam was built on a seismic fault in the ecologically fragile Bhagirathi Valley.

Suez-Degremont is not paying any of the social, ecological or financial cost for the construction of the Tehri Dam. The country is steeped in huge debt for the loans from World Bank for the Ganga Canal.

Even the giant 3.25m-diameter pipe (on a stretch of 30 kilometers from Muradnagar to Sonia Vihar) is being built through public expenditure.

Farmers who will lose their land, as well as water, for the pipeline are protesting. If the land and water rights of farmers of Western Uttar Pradesh, India's most fertile farm belt, continue to be threatened, the protests will grow as they did in Haryana as a result of farmers being denied irrigation water as a result of energy privatization.

The Delhi government is paying the UP Jal Nigam and the construction is being done by the National Building Construction Company. In addition, the 34 kilometers water transmission pipe within Delhi is being built by Larson and Turbo at the cost of 1.1 billion rupees. In effect, the public pays the price while transnational companies make the profit.

Privatization of water has been justified on the stipulation that full cost must be paid. When water giants get markets through privatization they demand full cost recovery from the people. However, as the case of the Delhi Water plant shows, the corporations get the water for free without paying for full social and environmental cost to those rural communities from whom the water is taken.

In India, the privatization studies were done under a World Bank loan of 2.5 million, of which 1.9 million went toward a consultant fee to Prize Water House and the remaining 6 million was spent on providing the facilities in India.

Private Public Partnership is the buzzword in water privatization. It is also the dominant theme in the upcoming World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the sequel to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Delhi water privatization is a clear example of how private public partnerships in water amount to public cost and private gain.

The Water Liberation Campaign (Jal Swaraj Abhiyan) which had already organized a study tour of farmers from Tehri in Uttaranchal to Delhi for World Water Day is committed to stopping the water theft by global water corporations in the name of public private partnership. On August 9, Quit India day, farmers will March from Tehri to Delhi to tell MNCs and the government that sacred Ganges cannot be commodified.

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