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A New Issue Percolates Throughout India: How Much to Charge for Water?
By Rick Westhead, South Asia Bureau
Toronto Star
August 16, 2010
KALA DERA, INDIAEvery day that it’s open for business, the local
Coca-Cola bottling plant in this parched corner of India draws about
200,000 litres of underground water from four wells.
Coke’s annual bill for 36 million litres? Zero.
Like many Indian states, Rajasthan doesn’t charge for taking water
from groundwater reservoirs because free water has been considered
a fundamental right in India for decades.
Yet water conservation advocates say that principle needs to be rethought
at a time when economic growth and population pressure are expected
to double demand over the next 25 years.
With 16 per cent of the world’s population, India has only 4 per cent
of global water resources. And in rural areas, more than 80 per cent
of water comes from fast-dwindling aquifers.
India’s 26 states have jurisdiction over water issues and in many
places, including Rajasthan, heavy users of water such as brewers,
mineral water bottlers and multinationals like Coca-Cola don’t have
to pay.
The rampant use of water throughout India is a crisis in the making,
critics and lawmakers say. The country is split into 5,723 blocks.
Of those, 839 are overexploited and 226 are deemed critical because
they are drying out so fast, according to government figures.
The predicament has sparked a debate throughout India: should the
country begin to charge for water?
Pawan Bansal, minister for water resources with the governing Indian
National Congress Party, says companies like Coke must be stopped
from extracting water for nothing.
“We have to address the issue of (water) pricing,” he said in an interview,
describing his comment “very explosive.”
“We have to take care of that . . . where water is really scarce,
as in places like Rajasthan. If you have any industry that extracts
water and sells it in any form as mineral water or a cold drink at
a much higher cost, that’s a concern for the people.”
Bansal said the government is circulating a draft bill that would
ensure more uniformity over groundwater issues.
“It’s like Mahatma Gandhi said, there is enough for everybody’s need
but there is not enough for everybody’s greed,” he said, adding water
“for the poor, shouldn’t be costly and for poorest of the poor it
shouldn’t cost anything at all.”
Some Indian states seem to have already employed successful multi-tiered
tariff systems.
The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board introduced a program
that starts with the metering of all legal water connections. As consumption
rises, so does the rate of billing.
A residential customer who uses up to 8,000 litres a month pays 6
rupees (13 cents Canadian) per litre. For users who draw more than
100,000 litres, the per-litre rate is 36 rupees. Companies like Coca-Cola
pay as much as 60 rupees a litre.
A lot is riding on whether India can introduce an equitable system
that prevents its already scarce water resources from being completely
tapped out without scaring foreign investors and employers
In Kala Dera, several companies are heavy users of water, including
a distillery and a pulp and paper factory. Coca-Cola, a company spokesman
said, is just the most visible.
The Coca-Cola plant here opened in 1999 and it has polarized the local
community ever since.
As a hushed crowd gathered around a rickety roadside barbershop on
a recent weekday, Mahesh Yogi reflected on the slogan used by Coke
to win customers in India, a fast-growing market: “Don’t worry. Just
open happiness!”
“How can I be happy? Life doesn’t run on Coke,” mused Yogi, who raises
wheat and groundnuts. “We need water for our crops. If we have it,
we prosper. But each year, it’s harder to find water, and that’s because
of Coke.”
Other villagers make similar complaints and some shopkeepers here
hang signs declaring their stores “Coke and Pepsi-free zones.”
Yogi and others say they’re frustrated that the company won’t close
its plant after an energy think tank in New Delhi concluded recently
that Coca-Cola was contributing to the severe water shortage in the
region. Among the think tank’s recommendations was the closure of
the Coke plant.
Even the cola giant agrees water here is vanishing. In 1999, farmers
and companies in Kala Dera had to drill down 12.1 metres to reach
water. Six years later, in 2005, the depth-to-water mark was 21.85
metres.
But Kamlesh Kumar Sharma, a Coca-Cola spokesperson, said Yogi and
others don’t understand the positive impact the company is making
on in Rajasthan, an area famous for pink sandstone fortresses. Coke’s
factory in Kala Dera is among 24 in India that are owned by the Atlanta-based
company. Twenty-three others are franchises.
Sharma said the company is helping farmers learn to use drip irrigation
so they just ensure the roots of their crops are moist without having
to flood entire fields, he said. The company is also making rooftop
rainwater harvesting systems for schools and drilling wells through
clay-covered riverbeds, so water can more easily make its way to the
aquifers below.
“Most people probably think we have a hundred bore wells and keep
them running all the time,” Sharma said, adding Coke’s production
here is seasonal and the company makes soft drinks just six months
of the year. “The truth is we employ a few hundred people at the plant
and the others feel left out.”
Instead of blaming India’s water woes on a company like Coca-Cola,
Sharma said, people should focus on government mismanagement.
“The city of Delhi gets 60 hours of rain a year and 11 hours are contained
while the rest is wasted,” he said. “How criminal is that? Every monsoon
you see flooded underpasses and buses floating by.”
Sharma pointed out that Coca-Cola still has a water bill, even if
it is a meagre one.
The company, which produces about 18 million litres of Coke a year
in Kala Dera (based on its own estimate that it uses 2.11 litres of
water for each litre of soft drink produced), still has to pay charges
for the waste water it discharges. In 2002, the fee was $111.
“We pay what the government asks of us,” Sharma said.
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