IWRM Road Map, Orissa :Water Pricing

Orissa going for fixing price for water use

Satyasundar Barik
Under the plan, users could be charged according to the measured volume of water
Water Regulatory Authority is expected to fix the charges

Civil society groups and farmers' organisations are up in arms against the proposal

BHUBANESWAR: Is Orissa proceeding to fix a price for water? This appears to be true going by proposals elaborated in the report of Orissa Integrated Irrigated Agriculture and Water Management Investment Programme (OIIAWMIP ).

One could get fair amount of idea about creation of market for water, identification of civic bodies as water retailers and classification of high value users.

As per the plan, users of water could be charged according to the measured volume of water. It proposes installation of metres for water measurement. It says all water allocations should be quoted in mega litres (ML) for agriculture and industry and kilolitres (KL) for domestic.

“With a common unit of measurement in place, the price will become more transparent,” says the document of Department of Water Resource and Asian Development Bank.

“Water users in Orissa do not yet have access to formal entitlements, much less access to a market or exchange where they can purchase additional rights. Once the safe yield available within a particular river basin or system becomes fully allocated, it will be desirable to establish an exchange where access rights can be traded on a temporary or permanent basis,” the document posted by DoWR on its webpage says.

It goes on to say ideally the exchange should function as a ‘market place' where the access rights can be bought and sold.

“While no one would be forced to sell their access rights, market forces would act through time to bring about efficient outcomes.

The exchange could be operated by DoWR or some reputable third party,” the document says. The OIIAWMIP report talks about earning cash if sellers would be giving up their water access right.

Water Regulatory Authority, which is expected to be in place by March 2012, could be fixing charges for surface and sub surface water used for domestic, agriculture, industrial and other purposes. “This is a dangerous idea. Gradually, access to water will become costlier. Those who have purchasing capacity can access water. When the report was prepared, stakeholders such as politicians, civil society groups, farmers, intellectuals and general water users could have been taken into confidence,” said Achyut Das, member of Odisha Water Forum.

“The proposal has been implemented to a large extent in Maharashtra.

The experience has been bad. The department has mooted pricing of water giving a reason that it would lead to more responsible use. We apprehend people who had traditional rights over water would be made to pay for the use,” said Pranab Ranjan Choudhury, another member of Odisha Water Forum.

Civil society groups and farmers' organisations are up in arms against the proposal. They demanded that the State government must elicit views of all sections of population before deciding on a critical sector like water