The Hindu : India part of 'scoping process' on water privatisation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004

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India part of 'scoping process' on water privatisation

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, JAN. 14. India is one of the countries involved in the "scoping process" (study) for deciding whether a multi-stakeholders commission on the lines of the World Commission on Dams should be set up to review private sector participation the in water supply and sanitation.

Germany — in fact, the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Wieczorek Zevl — took an initiative before the Johannesburg summit for Sustainable Development in 2001, to flesh out the idea for a multi-stakeholders review on water privatisation. Such a review is found necessary because of the various moves to privatise water and hand over ownership/control to multi-national agencies and the growing people's struggles to resist such moves and recognise water as a "fundamental right."

"The process is still to take off as the scoping process is on to ascertain whether such a review should be held. A five-member working group is involved in taking the opinion of several countries including India on what should be the focus and terms of reference of such a review," Danuta Sacher of Bread For The World, Germany, one of the participants at the People's World Water Forum told here today.

She said there was a huge debate on whether to get the World Bank involved as a stakeholder "but not with any role." The other stakeholders would be governments, multi-national water companies, NGOs, community representatives and workers unions. (It might be recalled that after agreeing to host the first meeting of the World Commission of Dams, the Indian Government had backtracked and the meeting was transferred to Africa.)

One of the five members of the working group, David Boys of the Public Services International, France, said that an NGO from South Africa, two from the U.K., RWE Thames Multi-National Water Company and the Association of Public Works in Brazil were the other members. "Two consultants have been hired by the working group, one from South Africa and the other a former member of the World Commission on Dams."

The report of the "scoping process" will be out in six months. The countries whose opinions would be taken include South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, India, Philippines and Indonesia.

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