“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
To the thirsty I will give water without price”
The Bible - Revelation 21:6.
The farmer flare-up at Maval near Mumbai (during the pipe laying for industrial belt of Pimpri-Chinchwad) should not be dismissed as politically motivated. Water stress is just beginning to show in India. With increasing scarcity of water, the competition for water between agriculture, industrial and municipal users is set to intensify. The global market for water as a commodity is estimated to be over $500 billion and $2 billion in India. India uses approximately 829 billion cubic metres of water every year. By 2050, the demand is expected to double and consequently exceed 1.4 trillion cubic metres of supply.
India’s agricultural sector currently uses about 90% of total water resources. Farmers are expected to meet the rapidly increasing demand for food, feed, fuel and fibre crops even though most land and water resources have already been committed.
Water markets are new and evolving. The values of licences traded are in billions of dollars. World Trade Organisation and North American Free Trade Agreement consider water to be a tradeable good, subject to the same rules as any other good. Corporations through other multilateral world bodies are also trying to influence national governments to push privatisation and commodification of water as “the chosen” alternative to manage the growth in water consumption and severe water scarcity. Water trading involves the temporary or permanent transfer of a water licence. A temporary or term trade involves the transfer of an allocation of water for a set period of time.
The companies argue that privatising water is the best way to deliver it safely to the world. It is true that governments have done an abysmal job of protecting water within their boundaries. However, the answer is not to hand over this precious resource over to corporations who have escaped nationstate laws and live by no international law other than businessfriendly trade agreements. The answer is to demand that governments begin to take their role seriously and establish full water protection regimes based on watershed management and conservation.
Just as governments are backing away from their regulatory responsibilities, corporations are acquiring controls of water resources. Bottling companies in different parts of India pay very little towards water mining and have practiced unsustainable water mining in these areas to the detriment of farmers in the vicinity. Some of these corporations are gaining control over the burgeoning bottled water industry, the development of new technologies such as water desalination & purification, the privatisation of municipal and regional water services, including sewage & water delivery and the construction of water infrastructure.
India seems to be progressing towards privatisation of water, which will ensure that decisions regarding allocation of water will focus almost exclusively on commercial considerations. Naturally, corporates will seek maximum profitability and not sustainability or equitable access to water resources. It is important that “Blue Gold” (water) be guarded as a common property resource at all levels of government and no one should be given the right to appropriate it at other’s expense for profit.
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