counter to Medha Patkar's call (Oct '05)

letter sent to the press, and posted on 'Hasiru Usiru' web-site:

Municipal water supply, the country over, is in a shambles. In such a scenario, when the bottling industry comes forward to make good quality water available right through the country, and at reasonable prices, it is fulfilling a desperate need. What is there if you have to pay for it? Would you rather pay the doctor's bills? As such, Ms Medha Patkar's call for boycott of bottled water (reported in your columns on the 25th Oct while reporting on the Seminar on Privatisation of water in the Senate Hall, Bangalore) is rather misplaced. I have, however, no serious issue with her call for boycott of the Cola's.

The problem clearly lies with indiscriminate over exploitation of the water resources. It is this activity that needs to be properly regulated, and that's what Ms Patkar should be demanding. That apart, water is too precious a resource for us to afford the inefficiencies of government organisations in its processing and distribution. This activity could very well switch to the private sector.

Ms Patkar has a definite role to play in this world of plunderers. One only wishes she gets her focus right.

counter to NAPM call

Counter to the Call by NAPM (National Alliance of People’s Movements) to boycott ‘Bottled Water’ from 2^nd Oct, ’05 (Gandhi Jayanthi day)

The government was likewise supposed to provide basic food items (through PDS), education, healthcare, electricity, public transport, telephony, etc etc. During Indira Gandhi's times, the role further got enlarged to include airline services, hotels, banking, cars, indeed the works. What we got was shoddy products and services. Eventually, everything came crashing down, like in Soviet Russia. Socialism can only be preached, not practised.

With privatisation, we now have world - class telephone, airline, banking, insurance, courier, healthcare services, and all at much cheaper costs.

Water bottling industry has made good quality water available right through the country, which no municipal supply can ever hope to match. What is there if you have to pay for it? Would you rather pay the doctor's bills? While, admittedly, there should be governmental regulation on exploitation of a scarce natural resource like water, we certainly cannot afford the inefficiencies of government organisations in processing and distribution. It should totally switch to the private sector.

On this Gandhi Jayanti, let's all demand that. Gandhiji would have been the first to dump our PSU's.