This document provides the background for a workshop on 'Water Challenges in Greater Bangalore', organised by NIAS and CASSUM at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Indian Institute of Science (IISC) campus on March 27, 2007.
The document highlights the current scenario of privatisation of water services that are being funded by international financial institutions under the water sector reforms in the city of Bangalore, which have had a very negative impact on the urban poor, who continue to face the problem of inadequate, unreliable and unsafe water supply as compared to other posh and water rich areas in the city.
This is because these water sector reforms or restructuring loans require state governments to eliminate public subsidies and establish policies that promote full cost recovery or 100% rational user charges. This commodification of water means that citizens now are not only transformed into water consumers, but they are also expected to pay for the operation, maintenance and expansion of the water facilities.
These pressures to cost recovery have negative consequences for the urban poor since they often lead to attempts at cost recovery through reduction in staff, compromises in the functioning, expansion, maintenance and sustainability of the facilities, leading to inadequate supply of water or poor quality of water.
This scenario calls for an urgent need to change the mechanism of governance and service management in the delivery of water to ensure greater transparency, political debate and civil society involvement with a voice for the poor users, leading to improvement in access of water for all as a basic human right.
The document informs that the workshop aims at addressing and debating these issues and proposes to identify appropriate steps to deal with this situation.
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