Subsidised water in Delhi - Do you think free water leads to abused water use?

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Kejriwal keeps his promises on power tariff, free water in Delhi, I just read this news in newspaper. I am concern over the water use. Tariffs for water is made so that people consume water wisely. If there is free water do you think there will be abused water use? I know that it is a benefit for poor communities, but do poor communities really have legal water supply? I feel the model should be based on your income and how you use water per head.

What is experts opinion on this subject?


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4 Answers

  1. We are facing acute water crisis. Future of assured drinking water supply is a big question. Per capita water availability is decreasing regularly. To ensure drinking water availability to present & coming generations we have to ensure efficient use of every drop of available water.The only way to ensure efficient use of every drop of water is to rationing the scarce resource either with the charges or without the charges. But important task is to judiciously ration the available resource. It is a question, how we can ensure that level of efficient use of every drop of water when we are not having the system of efficient system of measurement of supply? In my opinion, this is the time to take some stringent action towards most efficient use of every drop of water. When we have to pay for every drop of petrol/diesel and there is no scarcity of POL in market, why we are facing short supply of drinking water even after having sufficient availability at present. This the time to make a system to provide drinking water through water pumps as like petrol pumps. For poor people government can provide drinking water from public tap free of cost. The same way, when we travel, most of the people which are having buying capacity purchases water bottle and other (poor segment) take it from the public tap free of cost. RESULT IS " NO SCARCITY". Therefore providing free water is not a solution but providing 24X7 drinking water is the only solution.

  2. Satendra, Differential pricing for services like electricity and water supply are always welcome. But announcing free water supply up to 20000 L/month/HH is totally disappointing move. It is not only Delhi, I fear this trend should not spread in other states, otherwise the reform initiatives taken by many states, year 2002 onward, like Gujarat, Maharashtra, TN, Kerala etc. in which local bodies are made responsible for O&M of facilities and pushed to collect water tariff from users will face difficulties due to this kind of thoughtless/popular promises. The water sector is victim of similar announcement made in past, first by NT Rama Rao in eighties for free power supply to farmers in AP. Since then this has become a trend across the country, which has resulted in huge loss financially as separate lines are being laid for domestic and irrigation so that at least domestic requirements are fulfilled (Guj,MP trying), depletion of ground water due to free power could also be linked. Delhi should prepare a census of ground water sources, work towards regulating- withdrawal, improve quality & access, reuse waste water and promote harvesting rainwater on large scale.

  3. Satendra, some great initiatives here. Some Millenium Development Goals point towards different rights to water, and we would certainly look to more reliable water supplies across many cities, in many countries. I would be interested to look at ways of balancing demand with safe access to drinking water sources, in addition to just the subsidy model.