Experts seek hike in global water price

Good article – Experts seek hike in global water price in The Hindu – on water pricing. Every environmentalist should take this seriously. Anti-market environmentalists especially.

“Ideally utilities should not make any distinction between rich and poor,” said Prof. Asit Biswas, president of the Third World Centre for Water Management. “The moment you subsidise [someone's bill] people don’t use water prudently.”

The quote brings out a very key point. But this could be misconstrued as “throw all the poor out to die of thirst”. Utilities should must be paid market rate, so that they have the resources to upgrade facilities and remedy the problems mentioned in the article. Poor can be subsidised directly so that they can afford to pay market price. This not only helps them purchase the resources they need, they will also have the incentive to conserve. Basically delink the subsidy of poor from the operations of the utilities. Else utilities suffer, in turn don’t have resources, in turn can’t upkeep infrastructure and hence not provide services, in turn ….. The poor and the environment end up getting hammered from all sides.

As for the rich, let us/them eat cake (pay market price for what we/they consume).