The Hindu : Govt urged to make water privatisation contracts public

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 16, 2003

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National

Govt urged to make water privatisation contracts public

By Gargi Parsai

New Delhi May 15. Social activists and non-governmental organisations have decided to launch a campaign against the Government's proposal to interlink rivers saying the project was ``in fact a river privatisation project''.

They propose to hold public hearings across the country to create an awareness on the grandiose plan, estimated to cost Rs. 560,000 crores, and appealed to the Government not to implement any new projects under rivers interlinking project till people's water parliaments and public hearings provided an alternative plan.

Alleging that the project was being rushed through without proper assessment, planning and transparency and no attempt to get people's mandate, the activists demanded that all existing water privatisation contracts be made public and placed before State Assemblies and Parliament.

Alleging secrecy, the Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, Vandana Shiva, demanded that all documents related to rivers linking project be put in the public domain to ensure people's participation and transparency. ``The Government must come face-to-face with people, otherwise it will unleash water wars,'' she warned.

``The Government has not clarified from where the $200 billions needed for the mega project will come. The Water Resources Secretary has referred to raising finances from private sources. Whether the investment comes from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank or from water multinationals such as Bechtel, Suez and Vivendi, privatisation of water and our rivers will be the inevitable results,'' she said.

Alleging that the riparian communities had not been consulted in announcing the rivers linking project, she said rivers that were already dry and in deficit due to ecological devastation and dams and diversions were being treated as surplus. ``This plan will take water away from the rural to urban areas, agriculture to industry and if privatised, water will follow money.

Wherever multi-nationals have gone they've left in a year or two but have secured guarantee of 30 years' payment from governments like Enron did,'' she said.

Releasing a report on the Impact of the river linking project, she said the Ganga water treatment plant being set up by Suez Degremont in the Capital would rob the farmers of Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal of their vital means of irrigation. The contract must be annulled, she asserted.

The vice-president of Dehat Morcha, Satpal Chaudhary said a struggle had been initiated against diversion of the Ganga water to the Sonia Vihar water treatment plant in Delhi through a contract with the Suez-Ondeo Degremont of France, which will turn India's grain basket into a desert.

``There are alternatives to solve the water problems of Delhi rather than deprive the farmers of western U.P., Pani Morcha's Sureshwar Sinha said.

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