24/7 supply helps only the rich in Bangalore

There are lrger issues about water that often escape one attention. Kshithij Urs of the People’s Campaign for Right to Water speaks to Merlin Francis about the contentious subject of water supply privatisation.

Q: How did the campaign against privatisation of water begin?
A: The campaign began when we discovered that an MoU was signed between commissioners of various urban local bodies around Bangalore- Greater Bangalore and an NGO which promised to talk to residential welfare associations and convince them to accept privatisation of the operation and management of water. We also discovered that there was a larger plan to privatise water for Greater Bangalore under the Greater Bangalore Water and Sanitation Project. At the same time, we discovered various research documents that were trying to prove that there was a certain willingness for people to pay for essential utilities such as water.  But considering that when you force people into a situation where they do not get drinking water and offer them water if they pay for it, obviously they will.
 
Q: How do you get people to agree to privatisation of water?
A: First of all, they do not call it privatisation of water. They call it 24/7 supply of water. Another thing they do is go to places where there is no proper supply of water.  North Karnataka, for instance is a completely mismanaged area. They targeted cities like Gulbarga and Hubli-Dharwad with the promise of 24/7 water supply. Who can refuse an offer of 24/7 supply of water? 
 
Q: What is wrong with 24/7 supply of water?
A: For starters, we do not need 24/7 supply of water. When there is, we find that people use drinking water for gardening, flushing the toilet, washing their cars and the road in front of their homes.

This is drinking water we are talking about, in a country where millions are dying because there isn’t drinking water. Secondly, let us look at Gulbarga where the privatisation of operation and management was done in four demo zones of seven of the 55 wards in the district. The demo zones do get 24/7 supply of water but the rest of the district is parched. The same is applicable in Hubli-Dharwad too.

Why this happens is because the government has been armtwisted into supplying water on a priority basis to the privatised areas and then to the non-privatised areas.  Mysore is the only place where a private company, JUSCO took up supply water to the entire district. From having adequate water through the Vani Vilas Water works, the councillors in the city now refuse to go to their wards unless they are given security guards, because they are that afraid of a people who were forced to pay for water and now has nothing left. Apart from the fact that they were not even consulted when drawing up the agreement for JUSCO, now they are being told that they do not have the power to cancel the agreement. This goes against the principles of democracy, and against the 74th amendment.
 
Q: How does privatisation of operation and maintenance inevitably become “privatisation of water”?
A: There are two arguments for this: Operation and Management (OM), is the only core function of any water service body.  When you outsource or privatise a core function, it is privatisation.

Moreover, companies are not just involved in the OM, but are also involved in aspects from tariff planning, institutional set-up, infrastructure, laws are amended; all these are also being decided and put forth by private companies. It is a myth that the government is creating that only OM privatised.
 
Q: Why is commodification of water such a bad thing? When you put monetary value on something, won’t people be more careful with how they use it?
A: Commodification itself is against the character of water. Water is not a commodity – it is a natural resource. It requires immense discipline by the public to protect the character of water as natural resource. But privatisation isn’t helping in this regard. In Belgaum, 65% of bulk water is used by 30-35% of people in privatised wards. It goes against the argument that people will use it less.
 
Q: What are reforms and policies/ projects that have been brought about to gradually encourage privatisation of water?
A: There are five, the first of which is the Jawaharlal National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). ‘Reform’ itself is a misnomer and questionable because it is used to promote regressive programmes. One of the conditions for funds under this project is privatisation and private sector participation in public sector. It makes the availability of money subject to privatisation. The states will be given money, but based on state’s willingness to privatise.

The devil is in the detail here. While the JNNURM seems to promote community participation, the whole JNNURM project brings 20 conditions such as repealing land ceiling act, making it easy for conversion of agricultural land for non agricultural uses, privatisation of public sector and so on. Most people do not even know about this.

But have these conditions been approved or even discussed in parliament or the state legislature or councils? A slew of projects such as underpass or a flyover will be built under this, through the community participation fund. But these projects may involve the breaking down of houses, policies and conditions that we do not approve of.

The Karnataka Municipal Reforms Project says that the BWSSB will have to reduce its operation ratio by 10% for the next five years. When we consider this in the light of the fact that with the addition of  Greater Bangalore to the city, Bangalore is supposed to have enlarged by four times, but on the other hand BWSSB (through KMRP) becomes half its original size. You would assume that BWSSB will be strengthened. This is a deliberate attempt at creating a vacuum, and push privatisation.
 
Q: What is the future of the state if the government continues privatisation?
A: Look at Cochabamba, Bolivia. The people there came out against privatisation and the leader of the struggle became the first indigenous president of the country. In UK, the services are so bad now that water-borne diseases came back to the country after a century. Private companies continue to make profit.

In Marseille, France the World Water Forum expected over 40,000 people to come to the event. But people are so fed up with private companies taking them for a ride that they attended the alternative forum instead and only about 1,000 people attended the World Water Forum. After almost a decade, France is being re-municipalised. The efficiency has gone up; the grievance redressal system too has improved. The ppposite process has just started in India. The state is working to cannibalise itself into becoming a regulator. They will have no responsibilities, no say in any matter and the future of society is also bleak.