COMMENTS

Finally, we have a more balanced report from "Live MINT (click here for the full text)" than the ones dished out so far by the likes of "Star Of Mysore", essentially playing to the galleries. Some take-aways as far as I am concerned, are as below:

First, Jusco found problems with the scope of the work defined in the project agreement. When the tripartite agreement was signed, the work was for laying a network of pipelines over 910km with 117,000 connections. “During the initial survey done by Jusco, the length of the pipeline network that needs to be rehabilitated was found to be 1,910km with 1.74 lakh connections... The discrepancy has put challenges in the project execution and its performance,” said Jusco’s Sharma. With changes in the scope of the work, the estimated cost of the project shot up, and renegotiating became messy.

Dores this mean that JUSCO did its own initial survey only after the agreement was signed? How did that happen?

Another point of contention was the lack of cooperation between Jusco and the city’s existing water works department, Vani Vilas Water Works. Employees of Vani Vilas, which has been serving Mysore for several decades, were deputed to work under Jusco, but reports of conflicts emerged as the project began to stall.

It was not just lack of co-operation; it was plain sabotage by vested interests - check my post of the 23rd Feb'12 (above).

“The experience of private ownership has been mixed around the world. Moreover, it is also a cultural issue, and, in India, where water has traditionally been a public good, private ownership will not work,” he says. “That said, we can have private sector participation where we can have the benefits of private sector without the pitfalls of private ownership.” There has been other criticism too—civil society groups such as the Citizens Committee’s Coordination Forum have claimed that a private operator was brought in to get the city’s poor to pay.

I don't see why this talk should come up in the first place. The contract is for "outsourcing" maintenance and supply. The ownership of the sources remain with the government. Besides, you can have all the water you want if you go to the source – a river, lake, or wherever; but, for it to be made available at the turn of the tap in your home, there are huge costs involved, and these have to be met. For supplies to lower middle class areas, there can possibly be a subsidy, and in public taps, the supply can even be free. But the flows have to be measured, and the government has to bear the subsidy burden.

And policymakers have begun applying lessons learnt from the mistakes made in Mysore water project. In other towns and cities, the Union government is pushing for the adoption of a PPP model, ensuring that private companies are investing their money in water systems and generating accurate data to avoid discrepancies in defining the job to be done. Nagpur, the second city after Mysore to go for a city-wide 24x7 water network, has opted for a PPP model, handing over the city’s distribution system to Orange City Water Ltd for a period of 25 years. Aurangabad, Patna and Ranchi are also adopting similar systems.

Ok - so, it's happening in other cities! Hopefully, the learnings from Mysore should help smoothen the execution in these cities.

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http://praja.in/en/blog/asj/2009/07/13/capitalism-socialism-etc-unload-here#comment-31175

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According to the agreement, the deadline set was connecting 1.7 lakh houses by December 2012. However, they have connected only 50,000 houses against the target of 70,000 till now.

This is from the Deccan Herald report accessible here.

So, they have achieved 71% of their target, as of now. I would look at it as a remarkable achievement, considering the kind of hurdles placed in their way, right from the very beginning, by the mafioso within the governmental set up (who largely control the tanker-water/ bore-well business), apart from the vicious campaign let loose by the "mai-baap sarkar"/ psuedo-socialist types.

On a comparison, here and here are some glimpses of BWSSB's performance over the decades that it has been in-charge of supplying water to Bangalore city (apart from managing its sewerage).

What becomes very clear is that when it's a government agency that's in-charge, there are no expectations whatsoever from the citizens. After some cursory attempts at seeking (rather, imploring for) redressal, they just give up, and learn to manage with alternate arrangements. But, when it comes to a private agency, the very same people are out there thirsting for the agency's blood, even more than the water. And, playing to the galleries are the neta, babu, press lot, orchestrated of course by the mafioso and the MBS lot.

There is also talk of incompetence/ inexperience on the part of the JUSCO team members. Actually, we don't know. We don't have their version, with the press being silent on that bit. Either way, being about the first large scale water-supply outsourcing contract undertaken in the country, one would have expected TATAs to mobilise their best resources, and manage things more professionally, in order to make it a model for the rest of the country - the stakes involved are huge, apart from the matter of the prestige attached to the TATA brand. Perhaps, they are at it; time will tell.

Whatever, I would still like to bet on their doing a good job of it eventually, like in the case of Delhi power supply, which, at the end of eight years from the time of taking over, is today set to become a model for the rest of the country - check this.

The power supply reforms actually took much longer than the eight years for the TATAs to stabilise their operations. Much before them, a foreign company took over the supply in Central Orissa, and after struggling with it for a few years and incurring huge losses in the process, sold out to Goenka's and ran away. The Goenka's had, through their Kolkata operations, mastered the "technology" of "playing the game", and have stabilised the operations since then, in their own way. Eventually, it required the TATAs to establish the right kind of model, atleast for the cities.

Responses to the MBS propaganda, may be accessed here

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This is not propaganda but the Govt document which states how the MBS is really for the elite the Budget statement of Revenue foregone (which you must go into in detail)

http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2011-12/statrevfor/annex12.pdf

a huge corporate payout  and also to individuals (EXCISE AND CUSTOMS WAIVERS e.g on Gold, IT EXEMPTIONS in sum MAJOR SUBSIDIES)  of Rs 5, 30,000 crores in 2011-12 and approx at least 20,00,000 crores over the last 5-7 years. (a substantial chunk of the GDP annual)

The Public Sector reforms are also required which is another story.

Nagpur is another place where the other partner of JUSCO - Veolia ( link here JUSCO and Veolia Water India announce a partnership to develop water services in India

so let us list the objections again just to clarify

1. the water supply function cannot be divested from the government which must provide a basic need
2. Water is a constitutional right cannot be provided through privatisation by diminishing the sovereign fundamental right of citizens or the Government
3. 24 X 7 is a high cost, extremely expensive mechanism of sustained corporate payout in the guise of (PPP)
4. The elite IT campuses use the borewell water or highly subsidised public water.
5. Even in the US around 85 % of the water supply is by the public sector 
6. The move in Paris and many other European countries towards re-municipalisation, is because the experience of over 100 years of private water supply shows exactly the same as what JUSCO or Veolia are doing in India now
7. The extensive deprivations caused by high tariffs and the lack of investment despite privatisation in the EU has forced those local governments to withdraw any more contracts
8. That is the reason why  India which  is a big new market with huge JNNURM investment in the water supply and sanitation sectors is attractive for those firms which stabnd to lose buisness and profits inthe EU, South Amercia and the US
9. In India execution experience rests with the public sector 
10. In the EU and elsewhere it lies with the private sector but is going bad now.
11. Many countries like Uruguay and Netherlands have passed laws disallowing privatising of water supply
12. Italy passed a referendum against
13. Clearly the elite want a Mai baap sarkar to contniue but the fear is to call it a subsidy which it really is 

 Socialsm for the rich and the markets for the poor is not a slogan but the reality

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@ Mr PA - The discussion on this blog (started by you) is largely about MCC-JUSCO contract. If you have any inputs on that, we can possibly debate them over here. As for general "socialism vs capitalism", etc talk, there's this blog in PRAJA itself (here), where, if you make your postings, those interested will perhaps engage you.

And, as for Kingfisher bail-out, if at all it happens, it'll be by a consortium of commercial banks, who will very likely demand restructuring of the management, including perhaps the stepping down of Mr Vijay Mallya himself from the board. As compared to that, in the case of AIR-INDIA, the bail out is by the government, and for the Nth time, and there dosn't seem to be any end in sight ever. Whatever, all that can also be discussed in a separate blog, if you want to start one, rather than cluttering up things here.

Coming back to MCC-JUSCO deal, being a close observer of the goings on, I am sure you have read the following in the Star of Mysore (click here for the full report):

Mystery of missing 10 MLD water: Addressing press persons after an inspection of several places about the scarcity of drinking water in city, Ramdas alleged that 10 million liters a day (MLD) of water from Vijayanagar water tank was being misused by these officials. - - - While records show that 53 MLD water was being released to the water tank at Vijayanagar, JUSCO officials have reported that only 43 MLD water is being released. The remaining 10 MLD water is being deviated to unauthorised consumers by these officials, said the Minister. - - - - It is alleged that 10 MLD water is being siphoned off from the main supply line from Vijayanagar water tank to Kumbarakoplu, Gokulam, Metagalli and neighbouring layouts. But where does this missing volume of water go? Since how many years is this pilferage going on? Whose is to be blamed — the MCC, the VVWW or the JUSCO? Are the officials concerned not aware of this major water theft? These are some of the questions about which the authorities have maintained a divine silence and are more engrossed in "Raja Marga" and "heritage" works.

In my earlier post, while I had talked about hurdles placed in the way of JUSCO, I had deliberately restrained myself from using the word 'sabotage', since I was not privy to any reports on the same, other than from heresay. Now, of course, it's clearly before us all; and very obviously the reason why the progress has been tardy.

The officials protecting their vested interests is understandable, though not tolerable. But, what may be the motive of the cover up by people supposedly occupying Civil Society space?

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