Mr L disagrees
Exchange with Mr L (through Bangalore-based ‘Hasiru Usiru’ Yahoo Group), 1st week Nov, ‘06
Muralidhar Hi
I was not at the talk, but was happy to note from your report (as cited below) a good account of what probably happened.
I am no great admirer of an inefficient State. In fact, I would argue that BWSSB is the wrong kind of State organisation to manage a critical resource as water. It is to me an almost evil enterprise, where the State arrogates to itself the right of delivery of a life sustaining resource. That when we consider that in the evolution of societies and the State as an enterprise, which are asymmetrical evolutions, one factor that has remained constant is people have to have access to life sustaining resources. Interfere too fundamentally with this, and you have a revolt.
Agencies such as BWSSB were created in the Emergency era of India, when our blessed Mrs. Gandhi went on to take control of urban resources, such as provision of water, by way of parastatal agencies such as BWSSB. Clearly unaccountable to anyone but the Cabinet, the genesis and subsequent delivery of services by this agency was mired in controversy. If in the eighties it was the controversy surrounding pipeline contracts to Khodays, the nineties saw the controversy unfolding on the securing of loans from JBIC. This decade it is about how the water has to be better managed through privatisation.
Clearly, in all these decisions relating to how we finally get our water, the constant absence has been of the people. Parastatal agencies are a key reason why local administration of resources fails; because such agencies aren't local at all they do not have the mechanism of understanding local demand-supply problems and thus end up taking decisions on the basis of cultivated opinions (normally serving the needs of well off neighbourhoods). Parastatal agencies are pretentious locals, not absolute ones.
Contrast this with how water was delivered in the past: not just in the 20th century, but in centuries before. It was largely community controlled. It had its problems, especially in a f_____ up society like ours, where feudal and caste structures sidestepped (even rode over) the very logic of equal access to all. As a result, glorious philosophies and remarkable saints notwithstanding, a fairly large section of our society found itself so near yet so far from a water source simply because they were not quite the humans per Manu. However, over millenniums we managed to keep our water resources unpolluted, and even developed one of the most ingenious methods of getting water on demand: by harvesting rain in tanks.
Contrast this to the 20th century in the Bangalore region: not one tank built to harvest rain. Yet most tanks destroyed or polluted. Much of the destruction took place following the creation of parastatal agencies such as: BDA, BWSSB, etc. If there has been a conservation movement that has been supported, it is the local governments that have responded more than these parastatal agencies. The latest example of this is the manner in which BDA has created the R-CDP, with little consultation, and thus completely snuffing out major watershed zones around Blore.
I am not suggesting that merely by harvesting rain all our water problems would be resolved. But what is important to learn from this is that such agencies distanced the importance of how water is to be managed, as it took the local citizens' body out of purview in managing a resource that is fundamental to its existence. It demeaned the importance of political and representative decision making relating to a life sustaining resource. It took away the power of review of how water should be harvested, be it by tank or pipeline, and also how distributed. In that sense, parastatal bodies were designed to destroy the possibility of sustainably and equitably using water, and one major reason for this is that it mystified what was otherwise common knowledge.
Parastatal bodies are also agencies in taking away resources from the commons, and granting control over it to a small coterie in the government. An equivalent step would be to privatise. The former considers itself operating in the greater common good, and so would the latter. But a fundamental difference in the case of the latter would be the commodification of the resource. While BWSSB will deliver whether it makes profit or loss, private agencies will pack up and leave if the profits aren't enough or losses too much to bear.
All this considered, I find it problematic that you do not make an argument that water is a resource for all and should be managed by all. What better a means to manage it then by the local elected bodies. 100 corporators will be a very worried lot if thousands of citizens start chasing them with accountability questions on access to water. We have killed this possibility of managing our resources, and we can recreate this possibility for our common good.
Instead I am quite shocked that you feel "(T)he participation of an organization like Janaagraha in setting up and administering the regulatory mechanism" is what will help us tide over the crisis. Since when did Janaagraha represent me? Since when have NGOs gained the legitimacy to be a regulator? Since when have we accepted the State has failed as a regulator that we now have to rely on NGOs as regulators? Take this argument a wee bit forward and you will have Narendra Modi creating a "civil society" organisation to decide how Narmada waters will be distributed! And the beneficiaries are likely to be sugarcane farmers: upper caste, feudal and quite ruthless....
Regards, L
PS: Water isn't the same kind of resource as electricity. For one can live without the latter.
My response
Hi L
So, we are both agreed that BWSSB is not the kind of agency that should be entrusted with the job, but instead a body that is more accountable to the people – something like the BMP. In fact, I believe, that’s currently under discussion along with the proposal for the formation of the Bruhat BMP. Not just water supply, but also power, bus services, METRO, garbage collection / disposal, traffic policing, etc etc. Now, to expect a body like BMP to manage all these by itself, you will agree, is quite unthinkable. And, these functions are all equally critical. You have stated that ‘water isn't the same kind of resource as electricity; for, one can live without the latter’. But, like I have pointed out earlier also, you can have all the water you want if you go to the source – a river, lake, or wherever; but, for it to be made available at the turn of the tap in your home, you need power – to pump it, filter it, etc, etc. And, in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Kolkatta, etc, this power has been provided by private players for years together, and most reliably too. When that’s the case, why can’t some meaningful arrangement be entered into with similar companies for water supply also? What is there to be so alarmist about it all? These companies will have as much of a stake as anybody else in the proper development of the city, very much as decided by the elected representatives, giving added meaning to the term ‘stake-holder’.
Further, I had suggested “‘participation’ of (and not take over by) an organization like Janaagraha in setting up and administering the regulatory mechanism” quite like CREAT has been involved in the KERC (Karnataka Energy Regulatory Commission), since Janaagraha undoubtedly provides the widest available platform in the ‘civil society’ space in the city. And, I hope you are not suggesting that the civil society does not have a role to play.
Sometimes, I wonder why I should be bothering myself with all this when I am fairly comfortable with things as they are. When I was talking about the apartment complexes, which get priority water supply from BWSSB, even for their swimming pools, I was indeed referring to the one where I stay, amongst other such complexes. BWSSB is happy supplying us because, with their new found revenue orientation, they find it simpler dealing with large customers paying close to Rs 50,000/- against a single bill, as compared to dealing with some 500 different customers for the same quantum of revenue. And, as far as we are concerned, we have no incentives to try out conservation, rainwater harvesting, or anything like that.
On a comparison, my servant maid, who lives in a hutment cluster a few hundred meters away, has to get up at 4 o’clock every morning to stand in a queue before the community tap to collect two pots of water for her family’s drinking and cooking needs. The water comes for two to three hours daily at best.
So, essentially what is happening presently is that the government is funding the BWSSB to provide water for the extravagant requirements of the upper classes whereas the poorer lot is given a raw deal.
Now, if a private company comes into the picture, complexes like mine will have to pay the actual costs, which may not be much higher given the higher levels of operational efficiencies. And, the government will need to subsidise only the supplies to the community taps, which, even with 24-hr flow, will be much lower, reducing the overall burden on the exchequer to a considerable extent. Also, this will automatically provide the necessary incentives for conservation, rainwater harvesting, etc, etc for complexes like mine. A win-win scenario for everyone concerned.
On the question of ‘commodification’, the following is what I had stated once earlier:
Whatever you may say, when there is a shortage situation (and, there definitely is going to be one, not in the distant future, for water), it is inevitable that you will have pay for whatever is available.
Incidentally, there are fishes naturally breeding in the rivers, lakes and seas. Does catching and selling them not amount to commodification? Also, supposing Reliance sets up this huge power plant in Orissa, and uses the surplus capacity to run a desalination plant drawing water from the sea, and finds buyers for the purified water at Rs 100/- per litre, even as there is a drought in Orissa. It is still commodification? Can you then say that the sea is common property, and therefore, they cannot exploit the situation and charge so high?
Each situation has to be viewed in its context, instead of going by some ‘isms'. If you approach things that way, perhaps we can find some solutions. Otherwise, this inconsequential exercise will go on, and the plunderers will be the only beneficiaries.
Regards, Muralidhar Rao
Muralidhar Hi
I was not at the talk, but was happy to note from your report (as cited below) a good account of what probably happened.
I am no great admirer of an inefficient State. In fact, I would argue that BWSSB is the wrong kind of State organisation to manage a critical resource as water. It is to me an almost evil enterprise, where the State arrogates to itself the right of delivery of a life sustaining resource. That when we consider that in the evolution of societies and the State as an enterprise, which are asymmetrical evolutions, one factor that has remained constant is people have to have access to life sustaining resources. Interfere too fundamentally with this, and you have a revolt.
Agencies such as BWSSB were created in the Emergency era of India, when our blessed Mrs. Gandhi went on to take control of urban resources, such as provision of water, by way of parastatal agencies such as BWSSB. Clearly unaccountable to anyone but the Cabinet, the genesis and subsequent delivery of services by this agency was mired in controversy. If in the eighties it was the controversy surrounding pipeline contracts to Khodays, the nineties saw the controversy unfolding on the securing of loans from JBIC. This decade it is about how the water has to be better managed through privatisation.
Clearly, in all these decisions relating to how we finally get our water, the constant absence has been of the people. Parastatal agencies are a key reason why local administration of resources fails; because such agencies aren't local at all they do not have the mechanism of understanding local demand-supply problems and thus end up taking decisions on the basis of cultivated opinions (normally serving the needs of well off neighbourhoods). Parastatal agencies are pretentious locals, not absolute ones.
Contrast this with how water was delivered in the past: not just in the 20th century, but in centuries before. It was largely community controlled. It had its problems, especially in a f_____ up society like ours, where feudal and caste structures sidestepped (even rode over) the very logic of equal access to all. As a result, glorious philosophies and remarkable saints notwithstanding, a fairly large section of our society found itself so near yet so far from a water source simply because they were not quite the humans per Manu. However, over millenniums we managed to keep our water resources unpolluted, and even developed one of the most ingenious methods of getting water on demand: by harvesting rain in tanks.
Contrast this to the 20th century in the Bangalore region: not one tank built to harvest rain. Yet most tanks destroyed or polluted. Much of the destruction took place following the creation of parastatal agencies such as: BDA, BWSSB, etc. If there has been a conservation movement that has been supported, it is the local governments that have responded more than these parastatal agencies. The latest example of this is the manner in which BDA has created the R-CDP, with little consultation, and thus completely snuffing out major watershed zones around Blore.
I am not suggesting that merely by harvesting rain all our water problems would be resolved. But what is important to learn from this is that such agencies distanced the importance of how water is to be managed, as it took the local citizens' body out of purview in managing a resource that is fundamental to its existence. It demeaned the importance of political and representative decision making relating to a life sustaining resource. It took away the power of review of how water should be harvested, be it by tank or pipeline, and also how distributed. In that sense, parastatal bodies were designed to destroy the possibility of sustainably and equitably using water, and one major reason for this is that it mystified what was otherwise common knowledge.
Parastatal bodies are also agencies in taking away resources from the commons, and granting control over it to a small coterie in the government. An equivalent step would be to privatise. The former considers itself operating in the greater common good, and so would the latter. But a fundamental difference in the case of the latter would be the commodification of the resource. While BWSSB will deliver whether it makes profit or loss, private agencies will pack up and leave if the profits aren't enough or losses too much to bear.
All this considered, I find it problematic that you do not make an argument that water is a resource for all and should be managed by all. What better a means to manage it then by the local elected bodies. 100 corporators will be a very worried lot if thousands of citizens start chasing them with accountability questions on access to water. We have killed this possibility of managing our resources, and we can recreate this possibility for our common good.
Instead I am quite shocked that you feel "(T)he participation of an organization like Janaagraha in setting up and administering the regulatory mechanism" is what will help us tide over the crisis. Since when did Janaagraha represent me? Since when have NGOs gained the legitimacy to be a regulator? Since when have we accepted the State has failed as a regulator that we now have to rely on NGOs as regulators? Take this argument a wee bit forward and you will have Narendra Modi creating a "civil society" organisation to decide how Narmada waters will be distributed! And the beneficiaries are likely to be sugarcane farmers: upper caste, feudal and quite ruthless....
Regards, L
PS: Water isn't the same kind of resource as electricity. For one can live without the latter.
My response
Hi L
So, we are both agreed that BWSSB is not the kind of agency that should be entrusted with the job, but instead a body that is more accountable to the people – something like the BMP. In fact, I believe, that’s currently under discussion along with the proposal for the formation of the Bruhat BMP. Not just water supply, but also power, bus services, METRO, garbage collection / disposal, traffic policing, etc etc. Now, to expect a body like BMP to manage all these by itself, you will agree, is quite unthinkable. And, these functions are all equally critical. You have stated that ‘water isn't the same kind of resource as electricity; for, one can live without the latter’. But, like I have pointed out earlier also, you can have all the water you want if you go to the source – a river, lake, or wherever; but, for it to be made available at the turn of the tap in your home, you need power – to pump it, filter it, etc, etc. And, in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Kolkatta, etc, this power has been provided by private players for years together, and most reliably too. When that’s the case, why can’t some meaningful arrangement be entered into with similar companies for water supply also? What is there to be so alarmist about it all? These companies will have as much of a stake as anybody else in the proper development of the city, very much as decided by the elected representatives, giving added meaning to the term ‘stake-holder’.
Further, I had suggested “‘participation’ of (and not take over by) an organization like Janaagraha in setting up and administering the regulatory mechanism” quite like CREAT has been involved in the KERC (Karnataka Energy Regulatory Commission), since Janaagraha undoubtedly provides the widest available platform in the ‘civil society’ space in the city. And, I hope you are not suggesting that the civil society does not have a role to play.
Sometimes, I wonder why I should be bothering myself with all this when I am fairly comfortable with things as they are. When I was talking about the apartment complexes, which get priority water supply from BWSSB, even for their swimming pools, I was indeed referring to the one where I stay, amongst other such complexes. BWSSB is happy supplying us because, with their new found revenue orientation, they find it simpler dealing with large customers paying close to Rs 50,000/- against a single bill, as compared to dealing with some 500 different customers for the same quantum of revenue. And, as far as we are concerned, we have no incentives to try out conservation, rainwater harvesting, or anything like that.
On a comparison, my servant maid, who lives in a hutment cluster a few hundred meters away, has to get up at 4 o’clock every morning to stand in a queue before the community tap to collect two pots of water for her family’s drinking and cooking needs. The water comes for two to three hours daily at best.
So, essentially what is happening presently is that the government is funding the BWSSB to provide water for the extravagant requirements of the upper classes whereas the poorer lot is given a raw deal.
Now, if a private company comes into the picture, complexes like mine will have to pay the actual costs, which may not be much higher given the higher levels of operational efficiencies. And, the government will need to subsidise only the supplies to the community taps, which, even with 24-hr flow, will be much lower, reducing the overall burden on the exchequer to a considerable extent. Also, this will automatically provide the necessary incentives for conservation, rainwater harvesting, etc, etc for complexes like mine. A win-win scenario for everyone concerned.
On the question of ‘commodification’, the following is what I had stated once earlier:
Whatever you may say, when there is a shortage situation (and, there definitely is going to be one, not in the distant future, for water), it is inevitable that you will have pay for whatever is available.
Incidentally, there are fishes naturally breeding in the rivers, lakes and seas. Does catching and selling them not amount to commodification? Also, supposing Reliance sets up this huge power plant in Orissa, and uses the surplus capacity to run a desalination plant drawing water from the sea, and finds buyers for the purified water at Rs 100/- per litre, even as there is a drought in Orissa. It is still commodification? Can you then say that the sea is common property, and therefore, they cannot exploit the situation and charge so high?
Each situation has to be viewed in its context, instead of going by some ‘isms'. If you approach things that way, perhaps we can find some solutions. Otherwise, this inconsequential exercise will go on, and the plunderers will be the only beneficiaries.
Regards, Muralidhar Rao
posted by Muralidhar Rao at
11:31 PM
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