The problem’s being acknowledged here in the U.S. Unsurprisingly, it’s being treated as…wait for it, wait for it…a WATER POLICY ISSUE. What a concept! It turns out that water scarcity is a resource management situation after all.

Not an excuse for a war. Not a call to take up arms.

Bizarrely, in the American scenario, no one’s suggesting we sterilize people in Georgia, New Mexico, or California. No one’s touting privatized water supplies, either. Instead, there are suggestions that if you live in a desert, act like you live in a desert.

How strange.

Dammit. Why do people run to bolivia,france, and what not when talking about water privitisation. Lessons from there may or may not apply to India. why bring generic arguments capital cost, it will not server poor people yada yada. Why don’t we actually look at what is happening in delhis’ case.

Public Eye on Public Services There lies all the nuance you need to understand the crap that is going on.

Brilliant comment. I was aware that the expert opinion on water privatization was in favor of a limited form of privatization. This has been an interesting discussion for me in clarifying some of the issues behind it. Thanks all.

Coming back to the case of Delhi : there are differences between this particular case and the other examples cited. I doubt that Atlanta, Quebec or Stockton, CA had/have quite the sort of crisis that Delhi has today. In the case of Bolivia, the “water wars” started in Cochabamba because of the agricultural problems introduced for the farmers. Farmers who had not paid for water use for generations were suddenly asked to pay.

This is not to undercut the experience of other countries in this extremely complicated and vital issue, and it is certainly not to pooh-pooh anyone’s opinions. Sainath recommended the water activist Maude Barlow’s book “Blue Gold” the other day. Just passin’ it on for folks who want to get an activist’s view of things. (Here is an interview with Maude Barlow from Mother Jones.)

Salil, Improved distribution will help, but only to a degree. Privatization will not help significantly, and may actually exacerbate the problem, since the profit motive is already hard at work in this particular resource market. It seems to me that the profit motive is working in a bizarre fashion. Due to significant market imperfections, there is an industry that has sprung up that ought not to be there to this extent in the first place. Driving around trucks full of water is a very cost-inefficient way to distribute water.

I can tell you that the water problem in Indian citis has to be seen to be believed. I am not surprised there are people even quitting jobs to be able to get some water. A limited privatization of urban areas of Delhi might not solve the problem for everyone, and of course, not the problem of over-population in India or the problem of the rural poor moving to the cities. It is not intended to solve larger macro-economic problems. It will only solve the problem of water supply and of conservation in Delhi for those who are able to pay for it (and property taxes and such in these areas, which will no doubt appreciate in price, could be used to make it progressive). Note Quizman’s comments on the Argentine model. The Berkeley paper linked to earlier noted that ‘child mortality fell 5 to 7 percent in areas that privatized their water services overall; and that effect was largest in the poorest area’. Water privatization does not have to be regressive.

I think most of what I recommended was quite concrete and non-academic. But you’re actually very wrong when you say “We need to stop the low intensity war first and then we can worry about the damn environment.” Far fewer people are affected by the “low intensity war” (sorry, it’s not a war, guy) than are affected by environmental concerns. Again, this is totally off-topic.

This might only serve to enhance my reputation with you as an “arm-chair academic,” but I used to work for the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics. I can dig up several studies if you’d like that directly link economic development to good conservation strategies, and not just in the obvious “higher valuation of recreational areas” way people might think. Simply put, having a healthy environment makes having a healthy economy far far far easier. And creating economic incentives for environmental management is something India routinely ignores.

I’d recommend for anyone who wants a slightly-dry-but-plain-English report, to start here to understand the latter.

It works for the US. It will work with minor adaptations for India, should anyone develop the political will to see it through.

I personally think that the EE approach is a teeny bit dangerous at times because it places so much emphasis on valuation, though it’s far far far far far better than doing nothing and saying things like, “oh, terrorism is far worse, we need to deal with that, then we’ll get around to the pesky environment.” As if undoing environmental damage is so easy that all you need to do is plant a few trees, and hey presto! New environment.

Salil M, Sorry but you are behaving like a typical armchair strategist-you are not trying to understand the problem and offer purely academic solutions. The question of ecological damage is irrelevant to the situation. We need to stop the low intensity war first and then we can worry about the damn environment. Heck we can both plant a seedling. Ok?

There’s a reason why enormous stresses are placed on urban infrastructure in the Third World and, again, its economic reasons- globalized agriculture, drastic changes in rural land tenure agreements, prospect of higher wages in urban areas, the development of slums and urban sprawl, etc. I recommend reading Mike Davis’ essay entitled Planet of the Slums in NLR if you can access it or a review of his book (same title) adapted from that essay.

Simply put, when you are poor, children are a valuable investment model. This cultural/Malthusian argument of population growth is defunct at all levels of policy work because it is simply what Mamdani called it- a myth.

The two issues (Delhi’s water and bombings in Mumbai) simply aren’t related. India and Pakistan happen to have quite a bit of shared natural resources, what with being geographic neighbors and all. Using those environmental resources as weapons in political battles is fucking stupid, and will lead to even worse degradation of what is already a horribly damaged set of ecologies.

Ecology, by the way, is something that this “latte sipping” brown understands well. And ethics is very much at the heart of most environmental debates. So feel free to pooh-pooh it.

Fair play: pointing out phrases you use that are incredibly prejudicial and emotionally laden. And also total bullshit.

Next: yes, I totally and wholeheartedly endorse these actions in the West. In fact, a great many western municipalities do this kind of thing already. Their water troubles are not nearly so serious. Stop with the “You’re just an Uncle Ram” act. It’s nutty.

I don’t see what Mother Theresa had to do with water management. I’m fairly certain she didn’t really have an approach to this particular problem. Sure, I can acknowledge that the true heart of India’s problems are population-related. Got any ideas? Death camps? Forced sterilization? Eat the children? Anything? No? Okay then. On to discussing how to stem a water crisis.

No one said “throw money at the problem,” either. I said that the main problem here is environmental conservation, and water-management-related. Or do you think that private companies will somehow materialize water from thin air? Or that pumping stations, better distribution and the like will be free? Or even profitable?

And DesiDawg:

At the root of the infrastructure issues and a lot of the societal problems is the unbridled population growth. Nothing can help India’s cities until this is brought under control.

Aha. So…first the people go, then the solutions will follow. Once we do away with all the pesky Indians, Delhi will be a great place.

Come on. We all know about India’s population problem. It’s not new, and moaning about it hasn’t accomplished anything in the last 50 years. Time to start figuring out how to actually deal with problems, one at a time.