Ramblings of a wannabe do-gooder

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Water Privatization the good, the bad and the ugly

This is an essay that I had to write for one of my classes. Also check out the UNDP Human Development report 2006, Its called "Beyond Scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis and you can see it here

Also see this

In 1995 Ismail Serageldin, vice president of the World Bank made a prediction about the future of war: “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water” (Shiva 2002, 2). In this paper I wish to explore the controversial nature of privatization of water. I will attempt to examine the domestic, political, economic and international nuances of water privatization. Today in almost every area of the world there are water problems such as scarcity, depletion, pollution, lack of sanitation, failing rains due to global warming, big dam projects blocking up rivers, privatization, inequities of distribution, cross-border conflict, profligate use and mismanagement. The World Bank reports that 80 countries now have water shortages that threaten health and economies while 40 percent of the world, more than 2 billion people have no access to clean water or sanitation. The World Health Organization says that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world. Most of the victims are young children, the vast majority of whom die of illnesses caused by organisms that thrive in water sources contaminated by raw sewage.[1]
In this context, we cannot expect water conflicts to always be amenably resolved. The issues of water quantity, water supply and water pricing together with the question of the most appropriate public policy for the allocation of this supply to users, have not been tackled in a proper marked defined framework. Even in the United States where government organizations supply the enormous water needs of approximately half of all agricultural acreage in the West, the prices charged by public agencies have historically been nominal and unrelated the cost of supply (Spulber & Sabbaghi 1997, 18).

The prices charged for domestic water supply or sewage disposal are rarely arrived at through a market interaction between suppliers and users of such services according to Spulber and Sabbaghi and they explore the reasons behind this. They propose that the services of natural watercourses such as the removal and dilution of wastewater are not privately owned. The services with which these waste removal operations compete are also usually considered common property. These users have not treated water as an economic commodity, the market has not been used as a means of solving the scarcity problem therefore the level of water supply and water prices have often been made by administrative decision.

According to Spulber and Sabbaghi shortages and scarcity of water largely occur because water has not been considered an economic asset. This argument holds the artificially low price of water mainly responsible for the huge waste of the past fifty years in the use and management of water (Spulber & Sabbaghi 1997, 20). Petrella argues that in reality not only has the price of water shot up everywhere but that there is evidence that the factors mainly responsible for waste and general inefficiency are agricultural overexploitation, industrial pollution and an inability to apply a long term vision involving water management effectively (Petrella 2001, 52). The crux of the issue then is the question of whether water is to be treated as an economic commodity or not.

Who does water belong to? Vandana Shiva questions whether it is a private property or “commons”. What are the rights of governments to water and what about the impoverished masses in a country like India. The right to water is implicitly recognized by several international legal documents.[1] However, it’s not implemented in practice because of an absence of political will, frequently due to a difficult perception of what this right means concretely. Indeed this right has different meanings in countries where almost all have access to water and in countries where access is far from generalized. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights all support the right to water.

I think that the idea that water should be considered mainly as an economic asset or cashable resource and that market laws will allow the problems of scarcity to be solved is highly simplistic. It is an essential feature of the market that one should be able to choose among several goods of the same or different nature using criteria such as price and quality. To have access to water is not a matter of choice however, as everyone needs it. The very fact that it cannot be replaced by anything else makes water a basic asset that cannot be subordinated to a single sectoral principle of regulation and legitimization (Petrella 2001, 55).

Dynamic population growth and scarcity of water resources coupled with inertia in the conception and methods of water management raise increasingly critical issues in the efficient allocation and distribution of water resources. With limitations in water supply threatening to impede long-term economic growth and with the feasibility of cost-effectiveness of additional water supply projects deceasing an urgent need has become apparent to develop new approaches and methods that can ensure better management and distribution of existing water supplies. Drinking water has been considered a public good and the government been viewed as responsible for meeting the public’s growing requirements. Government agencies have reserved for themselves the power to establish institutions for allocating and controlling water resources. According to Spulber and Sabbaghi in order to achieve a global optimal situation the water distribution system should be examined within a broader framework within which private ownership of the water industry and free water mechanisms are the essential component (Spulber & Sabbaghi 1997, 190).

As the world faces a deepening global water crisis there are efforts to redefine water “rights”. The globalized economy is shifting the definition of water from common property to a private good, which can be extracted and traded freely. Therefore a removal of all limits and regulation of water use is called for as well as the establishment of water markets. Free water trade is seen by proponents of privatization to be a sensible substitute to bureaucratic red tapism that symbolizes regulation of water resources especially in countries like India (Shiva 2002, 19). However according to Shiva it is essential that water resources remain a common good and be managed by the community.

In countries such as India space, air and water have traditionally been viewed as being outside the realm of property relations. “In The tragedy of the Commons” Gareth Hardin explores a parable demonstrating how unrestricted access to a resource such as a pasture ultimately dooms the resource because of over-exploitation.[2] This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those exploiting the resource. Some have read Hardin's work as specifically advocating the privatization of commonly owned resources. Consequently, resources that have traditionally been managed communally by local organizations have been enclosed and privatized. Ostensibly this serves to "protect" such resources, but it ignores the pre-existing management, often unfairly appropriating resources and alienating indigenous (and frequently poor) populations.

Water is a commons because it is the ecological basis of all life and because its sustainability and equitable allocation depends on cooperation amongst community members. Despite water being managed as a commons throughout history and across diverse cultures, privatization of water resources is gaining momentum. Shiva examines Riparian rights that were based on the concept of common property. In India riparian rights have existed along the Himalayas for centuries. The ahar and pyne systems of Bihar where an unlined inundation canal transfers water from a stream into a catchement basin also evolved from a riparian doctrine (Shiva 2002, 24). Prior to the arrival of the British in South India communities managed water systems collectively through a system called kudimaramath (self-repair).

Before the advent of corporate rule by the East India Company in the 18th century a peasant paid 300 out of 1000 units of grain to a public fund and 250 of those units stayed in the village for maintenance of commons and public work. As a result of increased payments to the East India Company and lost maintenance revenue the peasants and commons were destroyed (Shiva 2002, 25). Shiva disagrees with several points in Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons”. His assumption about commons as unmanaged, open access-systems stems from the belief that management takes effect only in the hands of private individuals (Shiva 2002, 26). However groups do manage themselves and commons are regulated rather well by communities. According to Shiva commons are not open-access resources; but in fact apply the concept of ownership not on an individual basis but at the level of the group. It is important to remember that groups do set rules and restrictions regarding use. Regulations of utility are what protect pastures from overgrazing and water resources from vanishing.

Hardin’s prediction about the doom of commons has at its center the idea that competition is the driving force in human societies. There is the notion that if individuals do not compete to own property, law and order will be lost (Shiva 2002, 26). This argument has failed to hold ground when tested in large sections of rural societies in the third world where the principle of cooperation rather than competition among individuals still dominates. In India traditional water systems based on local management were insurance against water scarcity in drought prone regions of Gujarat. Village committees managed these systems. In the event of floods and famines the royal family helped therefore the role of a central authority was primarily in disaster mitigation.

Local institutions in water management included farmer’s associations, local irrigation functionaries and village water associations. In India farmer’s associations for the construction and maintenances of water systems were once wide spread. Tanks and ponds often served more than one village in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and in such cases representatives from each village ensured democratic control. Self- Management systems in India suffered when the government took control of water resources during British rule. Community ownership was further eroded with the emergence of tube wells and bore wells. Collective water rights were undermined by state intervention and resource control was transferred to government agencies like the Delhi Jal Board, which will be discussed later on in this paper.

Community rights are necessary for both ecology and democracy (Shiva 2002, 30). Bureaucratic control by distant and external agencies and market control by commercial interests and corporations creates disincentives for conservation. Why should local communities conserve water or maintain water systems if external agencies are the only beneficiaries of their efforts and resources? Higher prices under free market conditions will not lead to conservation. Given the tremendous economic inequalities there is a possibility according to Shiva that the economically powerful will waste water while the poor shall pay the price. Community rights to water are therefore a democratic imperative (Shiva 2002, 31).

Public as opposed to private corporations have usually tended to be concentrated in utilities such as electricity and water, in transport such as railways and communications such as the postal service. The traditional debate on privatization has always centered on the issues of performance and efficiency. Do private companies perform more efficiently and respond better to market signals than public enterprises? Through privatisation, State-owned assets are sold to a private company or consortium and these assets are owned and managed by the private operation in perpetuity. Private sector involvement in water services is a debate that has been going on for some time and there are strong proponents for it and against it.

The proponents of private sector involvement are, obviously, the private sector, some elements of government and agencies such as the World Bank, the IMF whilst those against are NGO’s, activists, some academics and some politicians. It is most important that the consumer’s interests are not sacrificed, either on the altar of profit or on the altar of ideology. There appear to be a number of examples where the private sector has, with scant regard for or understanding of the needs of communities, clearly gone for maximizing profit and a return on their investment, whilst at times it seems as though the NGO community would rather nobody had any services than that they were provided by the private sector.

The pressure for privatization of water is not an isolated phenomena, it is the expression of a general trend, which almost no public sector, public service or public asset has escaped. According to Article 1 of the World Bank’s statutes, its purpose as an institution is the promotion of private investment abroad. Also whether a loan will boost development of the private sector and more generally private production of goods and services traditionally operated by the state if one of the IMF’s main criteria in arriving at its credit decisions (Petrella 2001, 62). Analysis and proposals referring to the public sector usually all focus on its limitations and on the urgent need for deep reforms so that it can become an effective partner. However when it comes to the private sector the talk is usually of the benefits to be gained from its involvement in hitherto public areas. Private is taken to be synonymous with efficient, transparent, innovative and flexible (Petrella 2001, 13). It seems that water is in danger of becoming one of the last areas to be conquered for the private accumulation of capital.

If water is a fundamental human right and a public good, should it not be entrusted to for-profit corporations? The prime objective of any corporation is to maximize profits for its shareholders. No matter how responsibly a transnational corporation carries out its business, such commercial enterprises are not designed, first and foremost, to provide public services to all people on an equitable basis. After all, market delivery is based on "ability to pay," which means that poor communities frequently end up without adequate services. Additionally, for-profit corporations have little incentive to conserve natural resources like water. Since maximizing profits often means encouraging consumption, it is not in the interest of private water companies to work for the reduction of water consumption.

During the 20th century the world's population tripled and water consumption grew sevenfold. One of the major reasons for this surge has not been domestic consumption, although this has undoubtedly grown more lavish, but a wasteful model of agriculture that has turned food growing into an industrial process. The scale is no longer human and sustainable, but gigantic and destructive. The World Bank, states that there is now a global consensus that, “…the annual investment required by 2025 to meet the world’s needs for water for irrigation, industry, water supply and sanitation, and environmental management will increase to $180 billion, from the current $70–80 billion (Singh 2004, 1). Such a massive change can be achieved only if developing countries are able to create an investment climate conducive to the private sector and to absorb these investments.” It is crucial to remember that the water industry is now a lucrative business. The entire water sector, including wastewater treatment, is estimated at $200 billion.

According to a 1999 OECD summary of Environmental Business International statistics, water utilities account for $73.2 billion out of the total global environmental market of $453 billion for goods and services. However, these figures seem a gross underestimation if water is considered as an input to agriculture and other industrial applications. The industry estimates global trade in water to be close to $7 trillion (Singh 2004, 2). This privatization agenda has also found its way into several national water policies of governments across the globe. For instance, the Indian government dutifully parrots this in the National Water Policy of 2002. Article 13 of the Policy reads, “Private sector participation should be encouraged in planning, development and management of water resources for diverse use, wherever possible”.[3]

So are deregulation and privatization as solutions to the worlds water problems as the World Bank and IMF insist they are? 'The thought that water privatization might actually work must withstand a torrent of `ifs'. If there is a guarantee of free minimum water provision to the poor, if pricing and performance are strictly regulated, if environmental stewardship is strong and if there can be swift re-nationalization in case of mismanagement, there might be a chance. But is the reality hugely different? There are a handful of European water multinationals led by the French giants Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux and Vivendi Universal that are lobbying hard for privatization. Suez has water concessions in at least 130 countries while Vivendi is operating in over 90 countries.

In France Vivendi, Lyonnaise and Saur Bouygues share all the water management in a monopolistic position at local authority level. It is thanks to their decades of experience in water services that the two companies have managed to expand so largely abroad. This is a strategically important matter for the French economy and it is hard to see a government opting for any change of direction in water policy and management that might weaken or endanger the dominant position of French water companies in global markets. However it is true that water management in France is geared to the benefit of economic and financial interests and is not exempt from a corporate bureaucracy. The price of water has constantly increased in recent years and this has enabled the companies to raise their profit levels by a large amount since the mid 1980’s. Between 1990 and 1994 the average price rise was 50 percent and in Paris the price rise was 154 percent. The second major defect in the French system concerns the lack of transparency in the awarding of management concessions. Petrella questions if legalizes expropriation of a social asset is taking place. Should one not aim at collective social profit in the common interest of the whole population and generations to come? (Petrella 2001, 74)

A private company will want to recover its investment; the interest and principal of debts incurred by it and will want to make profits. All this implies that the cost of water will go up. The first consequence of privatisation is almost inevitably the hiking of water tariffs, making the water service unaffordable for the poor. This is the experience from all parts of the world. In Ho Chi Minh City, the rates went up by seven times. In Cochabamba, Bolivia rates shot up so that the average worker was required to shell out 25% of his/her salary in water charges. In Manila, where the company Mynilad was given the concession under the condition of supply at Peso 4.96 per cubic meter, the company hiked the prices to 15.46 pesos and then was asking for 30. When this was not granted, it walked out of the concessions, leaving the city high and dry (Sridhar 2003, 3).

Even in the poorest parts of Africa and Central America the public sector has shown it can deliver services efficiently. The water authority in Lilongwe, Malawi, reduced leakage to 17 per cent in the 1990s, a record that compares well with the performance of Thames Water in Britain in 2001. In 1994 there was a successful restructuring of SANAA, the state-owned water company in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (Hall 2003, 6). They dramatically improved efficiency by introducing computers, decentralizing the company's work and tightening up on overstaffing due to corruption. Leakage rates fell and the reliability of supply improved allowing the majority of the city's populations to receive piped water 24 hours a day. In Honduras the trade union at the water utility took a central role in the restructuring, whereas in the private sector it seems that the first step towards efficiency is usually to cut jobs.

Public-service workers are a vital source of expertise and commitment and authorities in some countries are beginning to recognize these strengths. In developing countries the most pressing need is to extend public services as widely as possible but many people are too poor to be profitable customers. Here public utilities have a built-in advantage because they take the risk for the sake of the country and because they don't have to maximize profits for shareholders. In Sao Paulo the public water company SABESP extended water to an extra 940,000 households and sewer pipes to an extra 787,000 households in the space of four years, an increase of 25 per cent in both cases. At the same time it turned around a financial deficit and maintained employment (Hall 2003, 7).

Not only does privatization affect people’s democratic right to water it also affects the livelihoods of those who work in municipalities and local water and sanitation systems. Government employees in India are largely seen as excess staff, responsible for the low productivity of public water agencies. The fact that poor public sector performance is most often due to the utilities lack of accountability is hardly taken into account. As it turns out there is no indication that private companies are any more accountable (Shiva 2002, 92). It is true that the World Bank has played a major role in the creation of water scarcity and pollution. It is now transforming that water scarcity into a market opportunity for water corporations. In 2002 it had outstanding commitments of about $ 20 billion in water projects. Shiva explains how privatization projects funded by the World Bank are usually labeled “public-private partnerships” (Shiva 2002, 89). The label is powerful because it implies public participation, democracy and accountability, however it disguises the fact that public-private partnership arrangements usually entail public funds being available for the privatization of public goods.

While the World Bank promotes privatization of water through structural adjustment programs the World Trade Organization is instituting water privatization via free trade rules that are embodies in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). According to Shiva GATS is a treaty with no reverence for or accountability to national democratic processes and it can challenge measures taken by central, regional or local governments as well as non-governmental bodies Water services have always been on the

GATS agenda and water has been of interest not only to the WTO but also to the European Community. At the Doha meeting of the WTO in 2001 water trade was put into the Ministerial Declaration. The section on Trade and Environment refers to “the reduction or as appropriate elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services”. This in other words means free trade in water (Shiva 2002, 96).

In 2003 representatives of the World Bank said that due to waste and inefficiency there was a shortage of water in many cities in India. Political control, mismanagement and corruption ensured that civic bodies, which provide water, were bankrupt. They equated them to monoliths with excess employees and with no urge or incentives to deliver. Water tariffs were absurdly skewed and The Urban Development Ministry said that the cost of delivering water to a metro home was Rupees 15 (Canadian $39) per 1000 liters. The customer however paid Rupees 1.50 (0.03 cents). "Delhi is a leaking bucket," said Junaid K Ahmad of the World Bank, which can be plugged with institutional reforms (Sridhar 2003, 1). The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) supplies some 2.9 billion liters (650m gallons) of water a day, against demand of 4.2 billion liters. With Delhi's population growing by 500,000 a year, "things are a little out of hand," admitted Rakesh Mohan, the DJB's chief executive. As part of its effort to reverse this trend, the DJB planned a $246m project, $140m of it financed by the World Bank.[1] The aim is to improve the DJB's management and the city's water infrastructure, and to move gradually to a continuous ("24/7") supply in two of 21 zones in Delhi, as a pilot scheme for the whole city.

In September 2005 Records obtained by a NGO called Parivartan (meaning change) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act indicated that the World Bank arbitrarily intervened in the award of a consultancy contract (to draw up the blueprint of reforms) of Rupees 70 million to favour Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) in November 2001. PWC lost thrice in the normal bidding but still bagged the contract due to the Bank’s interference despite strong protests from DJB officials (Jain 2005, 2). The DJB seemed to be simply implementing the 'orders' of the World Bank. In the process of providing the loan to Delhi Government for its water sector reforms, the Bank intervened at every stage deciding the Terms of Reference of every contract, deciding the eligibility and selection criteria for bidders and then apparently forcing the DJB to subvert and manipulate the process of award of contracts in the interest of the Bank's favorite players.[1] Representatives of Parivartan said that the World Bank was micro managing the deal and that this may not be corruption but it was tantamount to ideological corruption.[2]

The correspondence between the Delhi Jal Board and World Bank officials showed that PWC lost three times to rivals during the bidding process. It did not even make a shortlist until bank officials insisted, "at least one consultant should be short listed from a developing country" (as PWC has a subsidiary firm in Calcutta). Parivartan then made a reasonable demand, that the flawed, non-consultative processes are changed and the procedure be restarted with full participation of the citizens of Delhi who are essentially the real beneficiaries of the Delhi Water Project.[3]

The case of Delhi is just another example in the seemingly never-ending saga of mismanagement by the World Bank. Cochabamba, Bolivia is another such example. In 1997, the World Bank made privatization of the public water system of Bolivia’s third largest city, Cochabamba, a condition of the country receiving further aid for water development. That led, in September 1999, to a 40-year concession granted to a company led by Bechtel. Within weeks of taking over the city’s water, Bechtel’s Bolivian company, Aguas del Tunari, raised rates by more than 50 percent and in many cases much higher. Bechtel’s price hikes were met with fierce public protest. Cochabamba, a city with a population of more than half a million, was shut down by general strikes three times. In an effort to protect the Bechtel contract, the Bolivian government declared a state of martial law and began arresting protest leaders at their homes in the middle of the night (Shiva 2002, 103).

An unarmed 17 year-old boy was shot and killed by an army sharpshooter. Hundreds of others were injured. In April 2000, Bechtel was forced to leave the country and the water company was returned to public ownership. In January 2006 Bechtel, one of the world’s largest corporations, reached agreement with the government of Bolivia today, dropping its controversial legal demand over the public water revolt that forced it out of Bolivia.[4] Bechtel and its chief co-investor, Abengoa of Spain, had been seeking $50 million ($25 million in damages and $25 million in lost profits) in a case filed before a World Bank trade court, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Following four years of international public protest aimed at the companies, Bechtel and Abengoa agreed to abandon their case for a token payment equal to thirty cents.[5]

In the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico privatization attempts in Brazil and Bolivia were examined. Panelists drew attention to chronic weaknesses in the regulatory ability of states vis-à-vis the private sector, leading to difficulties in follow-up and to non-compliance with legislation; problems regarding lack of transparency in decision-making and operations; unfair bidding practices; and inequitable, profit-oriented policies. They underscored that water scarcity is an institutional and political problem and stressed that the limits of market mechanisms must be recognized.[6] A UN report at the forum in Mexico revealed but in spite of investments of $25bn (£14bn) in water privatization between 1990 and 1997, the rich have mostly benefited at the expense of the poor. Sub-Saharan Africa has received less than 1% of all the money invested in water supplies by private companies in the last 10 years. "Those who have benefited from private water services in developing countries are predominantly those living in relatively affluent urban pockets ... the very poor sections normally tend to be excluded," it said. [7]

A recent report from the Geneva based United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) brings forth case studies of four Maharashtra cities where water supply reforms were attempted. The report is part of an UNRISD project 'Commercialization, Privatization and Universal Access to Water'. The cities studied were Pune, Sangli, Nagpur and Thane. While the latter two yielded positive results in revenue collection which is the major ill of the water sector, a privatization drive in the former two cities didn’t meet with success because of exorbitant costs, non-transparency and citizens' outright rejection of the scheme (Sule 2005, 3).

The authors acknowledge that private sector participation is generally criticized for the fear of commercial and more intensive exploitation of natural resources. The global trend indicates that privatization has resulted in high and disparate water tariffs, often beyond the reach of the poor. The case studies in the UNRISD report show that urban local bodies can increase the efficiency of existing systems by contracting or leasing out certain functions like billing and collection, water treatment, conducting repairs and also upgrading of infrastructure. These options may be more viable and will certainly have greater political and local support from citizens as opposed to privatisation of entire distribution systems where decision-making and control is taken away from municipalities and local bodies (Sule 2005, 4).

An atmosphere of openness and transparency along with the demystification of privatisation is required if “public private partnerships” are to be made acceptable to the consumers. For water supply reforms, what is needed is innovation coming from within municipal utilities and not high cost solutions imposed from outside the country. There are alternatives to high cost technology driven international solutions to problems of the Indian water sector. It is essential that control of water resources be given to communities who can then try and develop equitable and democratic water management polices. Shiva writes, “The water cycle connects us all and from water we can learn the path of peace and the way of freedom. We can learn how to transcend water wars created by greed, waste and injustice. We can work together to create water democracies”(Shiva 2002, 15).

Bibliography

Bechtel Surrenders in Bolivia Water Revolt Case. January 2006. Earth Justice. Accessed on 20th March 2006. <http://www.earthjustice.org/news/display.html?ID=1107 >

Centre for Economic and Social Rights- Accessed on 20th March 2006. <http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/fileadmin/wwc/Programs/Right_to_Water/Center_for_Economic_and_Social_Rights__RTW.pdf>

Hardin, Garret. 1968. Tragedy of the Commons. Accessed on 20th March 2006.

< http://dieoff.org/page95.htm>

Hall, David. April 2003. The 'B' word: bureaucracy drives us all crazy. But does that mean selling the family silver to the highest bidder. New Internationalist Oxford: Issue 35 Accessed from Pro Quest Database on 24th March 2006. < http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=506613341&sid=1&Fmt=7&amp;amp;clientId=13370&RQT=309&VName=PQD>

Jain, Varupi. September 2005. Delhi water project soaked in controversy. Accessed on 21st March 2006. < http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/sep/gov-delwater.htm>

National Water Policy, Government of India 2002. Accessed on 20th March 2006. <http://wrmin.nic.in/policy/nwp2002.pdf>

Petrella Ricardo. 2001. The Water Manifesto: Arguments for a World Water Contract. London, Zed Books.

Ramesh, Randeep. July 2005. World Bank rebuked over Water Deal. Accessed on 19th March 2006. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1538326,00.html >

Shiva, Vandana.2002. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit. Cambridge, Massachusetts, South End Press.

Singh, Rajeen. June 2004. Water for all: Is privatization the only solution? Accessed on 18th March 2006. <http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?issue_id=17&article_id=445>

Spulber Nicolas & Sabbaghi Asghar. 1997. Economics of Water Resources: From Regulation to Privatization. Norwell, Massachusetts, Kluwer Academic Publishers Group.

Sridhar, Lalitha. November 2003. Water: The Privatization Debate. Accessed on 19th March 2006. < http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/nov/env-wtrdebate.htm >

Sule, Surekha. June 2005. Mixed Results for Municipal Water Reforms. Accessed on 19th March 2006. < http://indiatogether.org/2005/jun/gov-mahwater.htm>

The Economist. August 2005. Private Worries: The Water Industry in India. Accessed from Pro Quest Database on 22nd March 2006. <http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=881355151&sid=1&Fmt=7&amp;amp;clientId=13370&RQT=309&VName=PQD >

Vidal, John. March 2006. Big Water Companies quit poor countries. Accessed on 25th March 2006. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1736511,00.html >

Water Crisis, World Water Council Accessed on 18th March 2006. <http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25>

World Water Forum Bulletin. International Institute for Sustainable Development. Accessed on 20th March 2006. <http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/worldwater4/html/ymbvol82num15e.html.>


[1] World Bank Rebuke over Water deal. Randeep Ramesh July 29, 2005.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1538326,00.html

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[6] World Water Forum Bulletin http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/worldwater4/html/ymbvol82num15e.html. Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

[7] Big Water Companies quit poor countries John Vidal, March 22, 2006 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1736511,00.html


[1] The Economist. Private Worries –The Water Industry in India. August 2005 http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=881355151&sid=1&Fmt=7&amp;amp;clientId=13370&RQT=309&VName=PQD


[1] The Economist. Private Worries –The Water Industry in India. August 2005 http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=881355151&sid=1&Fmt=7&amp;amp;clientId=13370&RQT=309&VName=PQD





[2] Tragedy of the Commons - http://dieoff.org/page95.htm

[3] National Water Policy, Government of India 2002- http://wrmin.nic.in/policy/nwp2002.pdf

[4] The Economist. Private Worries –The Water Industry in India. August 2005 http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=881355151&sid=1&Fmt=7&amp;amp;clientId=13370&RQT=309&VName=PQD

[5] World Bank Rebuke over Water deal. Randeep Ramesh July 29, 2005.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1538326,00.html

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[10] World Water Forum Bulletin http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/worldwater4/html/ymbvol82num15e.html. Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

[11] Big Water Companies quit poor countries John Vidal, March 22, 2006 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1736511,00.html


[1] WHO – Waterborne diseases are World’s leading killer http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-17-voa34.cfm

posted by Merope @ 11:47 PM

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