Ever since the United Nations conference held on water in 1977 at Mar del Plata (Argentina), water clock has been ticking alarmingly. Problems of access to quality water in sufficient quantity, there is the risk of water shortages and nastiness of its resources getting trickier. The Mar del Plata seminar pointed the basic facts and made water as the main concern on the international political agenda. Yet the ‘water crisis’ has continued to deteriorate.
One and a half billion people across the world not getting the proper drinking water; two billion lack clean water. In 20 years’ time these numbers will be increase. Agricultural and industrial pollution is demeaning the quality of fresh water.
The biggest risk is in front of universe is the purification of clean drinking water and the sanitation problem. Privatization of water is being aggressively exported to the developing country under the rubric of poverty reduction, debt relief, free trade and economic development.
It is a depressing thought but a fact that Organized Capitalism and Organized Crime are aggressively devastating the process of globalization with predatory instincts. These twin forces are insatiably gulping the basic resources of humanity.
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The multinational corporations are tightening their monopoly on food, forests, water and other gifts to Man. God-given mountain springs are no longer free. One has to pay levy to use Enron, Monsanto Bechtel and other intercontinental companies for drinking water.
The World Bank [WB], identified as the clamorous instrument of Multinationals imposing privatization of water on poor and weak debtor nations. In 2000 it sanctioned loans to 24 countries binding the contracting governments to privatize the water supply. Critics say WB is financing Private Water.
Other international organizations such as the World Water Commission, who are expected to function disinterestedly, too, have been favoring privatization of water through their reports.
Indian Government also slants toward privatization of water supply. The tenth Five-year Plan draft clearly states that “time has come for take proper steps” to support private investment in water projects as the “Government has no resources for promoting water schemes”.
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According to Indian government getting proper water is the main right but under foreign pressure the Government is withdrawing from its earlier position. That the individual citizen must buy water according to her/his requirements is the government’s new plan.
Before shifting to the industrial policy the government has not cared to seek public approval. The private water suppliers can now fix their own prices and the government will have no objection even if the rates go beyond the common man’s reach. Accordingly, state governments are eagerly to handover water purification and supply operations to private companies in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and other big cities.
A French company is vestibule aggressively to take over the Water Supply operations in Delhi. In 2002, Karnataka government just about gave away Bangalore Water Supply System to Vivendi, a French firm for 40 Arab rupees. Consultancy firms who had advised this extravagant design got paid 2.4 Core rupees. The government was forced to postpone its decision in the face of prolonged and bitter agitation by the Public.
When forced to defer privatization of water supply in big cities, the government turned to small cities and towns. Ulhasnagar has already opted for privatization of its water; Sangali, Mathwad and Mirajpur are in the process of doing so. The Leftist West Bengal government, too, is considering handing over Haldia Water Supply Project to a multinational corporation. Tirpur municipality in Karnataka has fixed 9 liters’ water per day for weaker sections. Others shall buy water at prices fixed by the private supplier on its own terms. The prices of water are bound to rise after its privatization.
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Water, like air, is a necessity for human life. It is also, according to Fortune magazine, “One of the world’s great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.” In the past ten years, three giant global corporations have quietly assumed control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent of the world.