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Water trade is well deep ------------------------ Dr Sudhirendar Sharma Villagers all along the coastal and mid-ridge zone of Goa have found an ingenious way of ensuring livelihoods security, not from better crop harvests but from trading water from their private wells. While exact number of those selling water is not known, the trend is quite common across the ultimate travel destination. Though Goa had enacted its Ground Water Regulation Act in 2002, delay in framing the rules have allowed people like the Kudnekar brothers to sell water from their private well in village Saligao. Once known simply as a village located close to a popular hippy haunt, Saligao is now home to a brimming controversy in water trade that has brought the entire village up in arms against the duo. Says geologist A G Chachadi of the Goa University, ``Overdraft from shallow sandy acquifer has impacted the groundwater level.'' Ignoring the lowering of water table in most other wells in the village, tankers have continued to extract about 435 cubic metres of water from Kundekar's well every day. Ironically, the Kudnekar brothers have been selling the precious community resource to the resource-hungry tourism industry for just 10 paise a litre. But farmers around the Tirupur town in Tamilnadu have a keen business sense. Supported by a billion-dollar hosiery industry, farmers have long forgotten the art of crop cultivation along the periphery of Tirupur. For them, selling water from their private wells is what constitutes a good harvest. With lucrative margins, farmers' pursue their newfound vocation with gusto. Trade in well water isn't unprecedented though. Tankers carrying door-to-door potable water supply are common in most metropolitan cities including Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, where water tankers supplement the shortfall in municipal supply. Without doubt, the water is ferried from wells in the nearby villages. Most often, the contractors pay a pittance to the well owners. But the World Bank has long argued that water vending has the potential to reform the monopolistic water sector by bringing in much-desired competition. Indeed, many of the World Bank-financed projects in Colombia, Paraguay and Senegal have supported small-scale water entrepreneurs in the context of the inefficient state-managed water utilities. In Chennai, water vending through tankers meets 5 per cent of the total water. Private water vending in Dhaka is flourishing at the cost of inadequate municipal services. In both the cases, the World Bank had argued that suitable regulatory mechanism could help make optimum use of water resources as well as to exploit such private enterprise more effectively. While the aid agencies promote water vending on the disguise to push the privatisation button on beleaguered municipalities, government's apathy in creating stringent groundwater regulations creates convenient escape route for the thriving enterprises. Though legally there are no de jure rights to groundwater, de facto all landowners literally own groundwater underlying their land. Over-exploitation of groundwater was thus far limited to agriculture but the emerging commercial dimension is stressing the already dwindling groundwater reserves in the country. According to the Central Groundwater Board, there are over 150 `dark' blocks where the level of groundwater exploitation exceeds 85 per cent and this number is multiplying threefold every decade. The `dark zones' are likely to increase many-fold if growing dependence on groundwater resources for municipal and industrial consumption were to grow at the present pace. Currently, around 50 per cent of the total urban and industrial demand is met through groundwater. An assessment by the National Institute of Urban Affairs found that 21 per cent of the urban water demand was met through wells. Yet, urban water supply falls short of the rising demand. Unrestricted access and lack of regulatory policy is encouraging trade in groundwater. >From an estimated Rs. 3 billion a year, the groundwater trade is today > close to Rs 30 billion. What was earlier the bastion of farmers and small time water vendors is now attracting investors and municipal water authorities as well. Thanks to the World Bank triggered water sector reform process trade in water has now been legitimised for meeting growing urban water demand, so much so that water utilities in the public domain are switching to the profit-making version of water supply. Absolving itself of the prime duty of servicing the poor, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is toying with the idea of selling water through water booths. Once operational, civic bodies in other cities will follow suit. DJB's daily supply of about 650 million gallons (mgd) doesn't cover 1,600 unauthorised colonies and 1,100 slums. Instead of laying pipeline to reach this large segment of the urban population, the DJB wants them to queue in front of the water booths to purchase their daily requirement of water. Expectedly, water supply to the booths would be ensured through tankers. Wherefrom the DJB will procure additional 250 mgd water to reach out to the unreached is anybody's guess? However, it is clear that groundwater will constitute bulk of the supply, giving institutional cover to the unorganised trade in groundwater. Concern for the poor notwith-standing, the Kudnekars are sure to thrive in the emerging water trade. The signs are ominous! Dr Sudhirendar Sharma is a water expert and a development analyst attached to the New Delhi-based the Ecological Foundation. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------
