Fwd: Make money while the water lasts: CSE Catchwater Newsletter

[डा वी एन शर्मा]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: CSE <c...@equitywatch.org>
Date: 2012/3/9
Subject: Make money while the water lasts: CSE Catchwater Newsletter
To: vns...@gmail.com

In focus / cover story     Are PPPs here to stay?     News Updates       Anyone having water connection must pay tax: court       Policy       Grains of Despair: Sand mining in India       Best Practices     Water for the Nag along     Science & Technology     Qanats, Surangams     Lake clean up using algae     Media Point     The 6th World Water Forum, Marseille, France     The Groundwater Up Project     Photos       Water Farms     Water Statistics       People for Water     Contributing Authors     Gita Kavarana     gi...@cseindia.org     Luke Kaplan     wa...@cseindia.org     Nik Steinberg     wa...@cseindia.org     Mohammed Shehfar     she...@cseindia.org     Sushmita     sush...@cseindia.org     Parul T     pa...@cseindia.org   Make money while the water lasts In this issue of the newsletter, the second part of the PPP story looks at small informal water service providers, taking the example of Delhi. More than 50% of the population of Delhi is actually served by these informal water service providers. Although the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is mandated to supply water to the poor living in unauthorised colonies, JJ clusters, resettlement colonies and urban and rural villages, the reality is that people living in these non-planned areas pay more than 750 times of what DJB charges the well-off living in planned colonies. CSE staff undertook a survey in several of these colonies. Water business is indeed a lucrative business, and the direct result has been the drastic decline in groundwater levels, particularly in parts of south Delhi. The Delhi government drafted a bill in 2002 to give more teeth to Delhi Jal Board to regulate extraction of groundwater (bill no. 1 of 2002, the Delhi Water Board (Amendment) bill, 2002), but this has not been passed till date. The two reports together show that there is inaction on the part of Delhi government all around – not making the privileged sections of the population pay the true costs of water supply; and inaction to prevent looting of both groundwater as well as the poor. The article on sand mining looks at the state of regulation of sand mining in different states. Regulation of minor minerals rests with the state governments and in almost all states illegal sand mining is killing off the rivers of India. A model bill on sand mining in Karnataka resulted in stiff resistance from politicians and miners alike forcing the government to say that it will review the regulation. In Maharashtra, the ban on sand mining following a PIL was also withdrawn a month later. People’s protests and even the fast to death of Swami Nigamanand have not made much of a dent and rivers are slowly dying. Gita Kavarana

--
If you do not want to receive any newsletters, this link

--

डा वी एन शर्मा / Dr.V.N.Sharma
Cell No.9431102680,

Convenor, Editorial Board,Talim Ki Ladai & Reconstructing Education,

Member, Secretariat, All India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE), 

Chairman, Jharkhand Vigyan Manch,

President, SAIL Ex-Employees Association