dahiyars
December 7th, 2006, 11:55 PM
A MULTI TRILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY
Many of the state governments are trying to privatise water. Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are some of the states that earned paeans from the World Bank, the doctor whose prescriptions for privatisation are well known. These prescriptions, as history and experience have amply demonstrated, are not for curing the illness of the patient but for filling up the coffers of the big corporations. In 1998, the World Bank predicted that the global trade in water would soon be a $800 billion industry, and by 2001, this projection had been jacked up to one trillion dollars. These revenues are based on the fact that only five per cent of the world's population are now receiving their water supply from corporations. So as the corporate grip on water tightens, water will become a multi-trillion-dollar industry in the future.
No wonder that the World Bank is keen to change the rules of water distribution in our country. While our government is acting at the behest of World Bank, the Bank is for the corporate interests. The companies that are eyeing the water market in our country have been thrown out from Latin America. Suez, the biggest water MNC and a company that was given the ‘proprietary rights’ over water in Bolivia, is thinking of coming to India and China. And it is this very company against which the present president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, and the people of Bolivia have fought their famous water wars and won them. In our struggle for the acquisition of the prized ‘commodity’ land, we have to add water too in the future. And we must get ready to fight privatisation of water and flush out the corporations that are a bane on our water, nay our blood.
R.S.Dahiya
Many of the state governments are trying to privatise water. Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are some of the states that earned paeans from the World Bank, the doctor whose prescriptions for privatisation are well known. These prescriptions, as history and experience have amply demonstrated, are not for curing the illness of the patient but for filling up the coffers of the big corporations. In 1998, the World Bank predicted that the global trade in water would soon be a $800 billion industry, and by 2001, this projection had been jacked up to one trillion dollars. These revenues are based on the fact that only five per cent of the world's population are now receiving their water supply from corporations. So as the corporate grip on water tightens, water will become a multi-trillion-dollar industry in the future.
No wonder that the World Bank is keen to change the rules of water distribution in our country. While our government is acting at the behest of World Bank, the Bank is for the corporate interests. The companies that are eyeing the water market in our country have been thrown out from Latin America. Suez, the biggest water MNC and a company that was given the ‘proprietary rights’ over water in Bolivia, is thinking of coming to India and China. And it is this very company against which the present president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, and the people of Bolivia have fought their famous water wars and won them. In our struggle for the acquisition of the prized ‘commodity’ land, we have to add water too in the future. And we must get ready to fight privatisation of water and flush out the corporations that are a bane on our water, nay our blood.
R.S.Dahiya