A counter to Prof Michael Goldman's presentation
Last Saturday (28th Oct, ’06), I had attended a talk by Prof Michael Goldman, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, on ‘World Bank and Governance – Water Policy’.
The focus apparently was on the perils of ‘privatization’, which was put very subtly across, without any of the rhetoric normally associated with such Socialistic stances, and consequently, fairly effective. The talk dwelt largely on how the World Bank was changing its approach, and was today directly influencing decision-making right at the grass-root levels. It is only towards the end when the Prof went on to express concern over the circumvention of the authority of the elected representatives, as he saw it, did it become clear to me that he was apprehensive about these developments.
To me, a person from the opposite (liberalist) camp, what appeared note-worthy and indeed a matter of concern, was the preponderance, as alleged by the Prof, of the people from the industry itself dominating the agencies that are supposed to be regulating them. Well, as I have repeatedly stated before, privatization is no panacea to the problems prevailing, and such aspects certainly need to be addressed.
During the inter-action session at the end of the talk, I brought up the parallel in the power distribution scenario, specifically comparing the performance of the government-owned BESCOM in Bangalore, with that of the private players in Mumbai, the Mumbai scenario being any day preferable. The point I was making was that if it was possible in the area of power distribution, there is no reason why it cannot be worked in the area of water distribution also. The problem possibly was that the Indian companies had not entered the picture yet, for some historical reasons, and the foreign players like SUEZ, etc hadn’t got their business plans, for the so-called 3rd world countries, quite right. Because of these reasons, they were either being forced to quit, or were themselves pulling out because of mounting losses. Indeed, the same thing happened in the power generation area in India also, and a number of foreign players like ENRON, COGENTRIX, TRACTABEL, etc, were forced to exit, even as Indian companies like Reliance, TATA’s, GMR, Jindal, etc persisted and eventually have come out on top. So, the answer may be in inviting the Indian Corporates into the arena, with necessary regulatory mechanism put in place in collaboration with reputed, grass-root level NGO’s, like Janaagraha, who were after all the architects of the FBAS accounting system now being adopted by all the progressive municipalities.
As against that, by creating a phobia about the private sector, in general, all that is being achieved is the perpetuation of the status quo, where the man on the street is ending up having to pay Rs 10/- for a litre of potable water, whereas similar quality water is being made available on priority to up-market housing complexes, including for their swimming pools, by the government-owned BWSSB, at the same Rs 10/-, but for 100 times the quantity – 1 KL.
A gentleman, who introduced himself as the convener of the anti-water privatisation platform in Bangalore, chose to intervene to say that the Mumbai power scenario was possibly an isolated one, and generalizations could not be made on that basis. He went on to add that water management was no rocket science, and that BWSSB was capable of managing things itself, even without any managerial or technical inputs from the private sector, or the regulatory / facilitatory role of any NGO. As different from the general tone of Prof Goldman’s talk, this person unfortunately went on to make plain his personal prejudices against Janaagraha, on a public platform.
What I wanted to convey thereafter, but could not get down to, since the moderator had signaled the closure, was that
1) Mumbai’s is not an isolated case of excellent quality power distribution by the private sector players – there are others like Ahmedabad, Surat, Greater Noida, and Kolkatta. And, New Delhi and the cities in the state of Orissa, where power distribution has been privatized a few years back, will be joining them soon, as regards the quality aspects are concerned.
2) The situation is pretty bad, and it is deteriorating rapidly.
3) The government agencies like BWSSB have serious limitations, and the people cannot be made to wait indefinitely while they are trying to get their acts together.
4) The worst affected because of the incapacity of the likes of the BWSSB are invariably the poor, as clearly seen from the earlier cited example.
5) The failure of multi-nationals like SUEZ does not mean that Indian companies cannot handle the problems, as evidenced by their performances in the power, telecom, civil aviation, insurance, banking and other sectors, which are equally critical. In fact, they have shown themselves to be best suited to any job, and are poised to take over all businesses from the earlier players the world over.
6) The participation of an organization like Janaagraha in setting up and administering the regulatory mechanism, will provide the necessary checks against the kind of practices that Prof Goldman had highlighted.
7) What we are facing today is distributed plundering by the likes of the water bottlers, tanker water suppliers, sump-pump-tank suppliers / builders, water purifiers mfg industry, etc, etc, as compared to centralized plundering attempted by the likes of SUEZ, which any way is easier to control.
8) The answer very likely lies in inviting reputed Indian Corporates to take over, with the necessary regulatory mechanism, as stated at 6 above, also put in place simultaneously. I will readily place my bet on the likes of TATA's, who are today moving towards 'Karma capitalism'.
The focus apparently was on the perils of ‘privatization’, which was put very subtly across, without any of the rhetoric normally associated with such Socialistic stances, and consequently, fairly effective. The talk dwelt largely on how the World Bank was changing its approach, and was today directly influencing decision-making right at the grass-root levels. It is only towards the end when the Prof went on to express concern over the circumvention of the authority of the elected representatives, as he saw it, did it become clear to me that he was apprehensive about these developments.
To me, a person from the opposite (liberalist) camp, what appeared note-worthy and indeed a matter of concern, was the preponderance, as alleged by the Prof, of the people from the industry itself dominating the agencies that are supposed to be regulating them. Well, as I have repeatedly stated before, privatization is no panacea to the problems prevailing, and such aspects certainly need to be addressed.
During the inter-action session at the end of the talk, I brought up the parallel in the power distribution scenario, specifically comparing the performance of the government-owned BESCOM in Bangalore, with that of the private players in Mumbai, the Mumbai scenario being any day preferable. The point I was making was that if it was possible in the area of power distribution, there is no reason why it cannot be worked in the area of water distribution also. The problem possibly was that the Indian companies had not entered the picture yet, for some historical reasons, and the foreign players like SUEZ, etc hadn’t got their business plans, for the so-called 3rd world countries, quite right. Because of these reasons, they were either being forced to quit, or were themselves pulling out because of mounting losses. Indeed, the same thing happened in the power generation area in India also, and a number of foreign players like ENRON, COGENTRIX, TRACTABEL, etc, were forced to exit, even as Indian companies like Reliance, TATA’s, GMR, Jindal, etc persisted and eventually have come out on top. So, the answer may be in inviting the Indian Corporates into the arena, with necessary regulatory mechanism put in place in collaboration with reputed, grass-root level NGO’s, like Janaagraha, who were after all the architects of the FBAS accounting system now being adopted by all the progressive municipalities.
As against that, by creating a phobia about the private sector, in general, all that is being achieved is the perpetuation of the status quo, where the man on the street is ending up having to pay Rs 10/- for a litre of potable water, whereas similar quality water is being made available on priority to up-market housing complexes, including for their swimming pools, by the government-owned BWSSB, at the same Rs 10/-, but for 100 times the quantity – 1 KL.
A gentleman, who introduced himself as the convener of the anti-water privatisation platform in Bangalore, chose to intervene to say that the Mumbai power scenario was possibly an isolated one, and generalizations could not be made on that basis. He went on to add that water management was no rocket science, and that BWSSB was capable of managing things itself, even without any managerial or technical inputs from the private sector, or the regulatory / facilitatory role of any NGO. As different from the general tone of Prof Goldman’s talk, this person unfortunately went on to make plain his personal prejudices against Janaagraha, on a public platform.
What I wanted to convey thereafter, but could not get down to, since the moderator had signaled the closure, was that
1) Mumbai’s is not an isolated case of excellent quality power distribution by the private sector players – there are others like Ahmedabad, Surat, Greater Noida, and Kolkatta. And, New Delhi and the cities in the state of Orissa, where power distribution has been privatized a few years back, will be joining them soon, as regards the quality aspects are concerned.
2) The situation is pretty bad, and it is deteriorating rapidly.
3) The government agencies like BWSSB have serious limitations, and the people cannot be made to wait indefinitely while they are trying to get their acts together.
4) The worst affected because of the incapacity of the likes of the BWSSB are invariably the poor, as clearly seen from the earlier cited example.
5) The failure of multi-nationals like SUEZ does not mean that Indian companies cannot handle the problems, as evidenced by their performances in the power, telecom, civil aviation, insurance, banking and other sectors, which are equally critical. In fact, they have shown themselves to be best suited to any job, and are poised to take over all businesses from the earlier players the world over.
6) The participation of an organization like Janaagraha in setting up and administering the regulatory mechanism, will provide the necessary checks against the kind of practices that Prof Goldman had highlighted.
7) What we are facing today is distributed plundering by the likes of the water bottlers, tanker water suppliers, sump-pump-tank suppliers / builders, water purifiers mfg industry, etc, etc, as compared to centralized plundering attempted by the likes of SUEZ, which any way is easier to control.
8) The answer very likely lies in inviting reputed Indian Corporates to take over, with the necessary regulatory mechanism, as stated at 6 above, also put in place simultaneously. I will readily place my bet on the likes of TATA's, who are today moving towards 'Karma capitalism'.
posted by Muralidhar Rao at
10:12 PM
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