Why water should be priced?
- With 18% of the world population, India has only 4% of the world’s renewable water resources. Moreover, the distribution is geographically skewed and the majority of rainfall occurs over just a few months, leading to reckless consumption in well-endowed geographies and during those months.This can be avoided because of pricing
- Inefficient agricultural usage of water and exports of water-intensive crops make India a large virtual exporter of water
- Low/Free water rates, apart from encouraging the inefficient use of water, result in low revenue collections and contribute to the growing burden of government subsidies
- OECD studies say that putting the right price on water will encourage people to waste less, pollute less, and invest more in water infrastructure
Why water should not be priced?
- Water is the basic human need. Making it a commodity is against human rights of those who can’t pay.
- It will increase input cost of farmers
- It will erode India’s export advantage