A minimum of 40 liters per day of water is needed to meet basic human requirements on a daily basis. But a situation is arising where we will be paying so much that we can afford to buy only 40 milliliters of water to drink. Inefficient handling of water resources has led to the collapse of municipal infrastructure. The bureaucratic management of this scarce resource has ensured that per capita water availability in India is down to 2,200 cubic meters, from a high of 6,008 cubic meters some 50 years ago. This is expected to plunge to an alarming low of 496 cubic meters per person per year in the next 25 years. In its backdrop, the mineral water bottle industry has seen as many as 180 players in the market selling as much as, 1000 million liters of water each year.

The fact that 1.1 billion people lack access to adequate clean water is a reason for happiness for the growing water industry. Amidst indifference towards resentment by civil society, privatisation of water is going on without any let down as our government is succumbing to donor pressure for facilitating privatisation of their water utilities. Even our national water policy is inching towards privatization ignoring of the final written recommendations made by National Consultative Committee on Water included Anna Hazare, Achyut Das, Vandana Shiva, Rajendra Singh and Mihir Shah.
Delhi’s water is all set be in the hands of the Vivendi Company. Already some 30 cities in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhara Pradesh and Rajasthan are bidding their respective municipal water supply to a handful of powerful multinational corporations specialising in water. Tirupur town in Tamilnadu and Hubli-Dharwad in Karnataka are also moving closer to privatisation of their water utilities.

In the backdrop of these crucial happenings, putting the water issue in camaign perspective and coming out with concrete ideas to deal with the corporatisation of this vital element of our food chain.