Saturday, April 13, 2013

[rti4empowerment] Impending crisis about Water Supply

 

Dear Krish,

Glad to see your passion and madness about water sector. There is an appropriate urdu word for such personal commitment: "JUNOON".

My personal commitment is towards RTI and Social Audit. It is my sincere belief that empowerment of citizens is key to sustained social development. According to my perception, opacity and lack of transparency is largely driven by all-pervasive corruption. Hence there is lip service towards RTI / citizen empowerment / democratic decentralisation / transparency / public accountability / community participation etc, whereas every one in power would do whatever they can to guard their turf. Based on this hypothesis ( and ground reality), one has to think in terms of practical and workable changes, largely aimed at promoting public awareness and participation.

Water Supply is largely met from public funds. Even the privatized water supply is covered by RTI Act, if it is substantially funded by the Government. The key issue is suo moto disclosure of information under section 4 of RTI Act, to enable effective public accountability of public authorities at the grass-roots. Every citizen should be made aware of all schemes conceived by the Government for his benefit, to enable (I) Social Audit of schemes to improve water supply, (ii) Ascertain whether progress reported on paper is actually reflected by ground reality, (iii) Schemes meet the concerns and problem of citizens, etc. Theoretically, administrative support to Social Audit of MGNREGA provides a model that can be copied in other development schemes, including water supply.

In the context of water supply schemes, there is need for (a) Evolving mandatory disclosure guidelines for public authorities dealing with water supply at District / Block / Village levels so that intended beneficiary could evaluate the schemes, (b) Social Audit guidelines stated in simple terms that enable every citizen to "audit " and (c) Structured monitoring of social audit findings.

With best wishes,

Dhirendra Krishna IA&AS (Retired)

From: krish <krish78@gmail.com>
To: rightssuresh@gmail.com
Cc: Suresh V <rightstn@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, 14 April 2013 6:23 AM
Subject: **Urgent and important Water**:Started Law & Policy debate group, on PPP in Water Sector at linkedin

Dear Dr, Suresh and people BCCed,

I welcome one and all to give your feed back. Kindly do so, ya i have been crazy, but there is very thin line between passion and madness. So nothing wrong if somebody crosses the line a couple of times. what does not kill you will make you stronger. Hope this email is read in better light and responded, Considering the subject matter. WATER which synonymous with Lite & Civilization. We are the brink of water wars.

I don't know how come Right to Food is getting passed without Right to clean drinking water."Public public partnership in the water sector" group, we seem to have misplaced priorities, basically water & sanitation was taken for granted about 15 years ago. But now this sector is undergone and still undergoing vast change. I have started a debate on linkedin a much more serious FACEBOOK apparently for business communities. Attached is a short quick note for the group on linkedin . Facebook has a couple of Open groups on Right to water, but they don't seem to have enough patronage.

Want to Bring people to the attention the
Work done{The Brilliant Highly Intensive Organisational Transformational Programme } with the TWAD Board( (http://twadboard.gov.in/) THE GOVT ORG THAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DRINKING WATER SUPPLY) by Dr V Suresh's(National Secretary PUCL, CENTER FOR LAW POLICY & HUMAN RIGHTS) & His team's work
When i worked at the CENTER FOR LAW POLICY for a brief period of about 4, I had opportunity to chance about this Briliant booklet, actually suggested by Dr Suresh Written by IIT allumini, Sripad Dharmadikary The book is availabe here at http://www.manthan-india.org/IMG/pdf/Water_Pvt_Ltd_New.pdf .It has a lot of lot of research on Water Privatization, Several case studies across the world and points out the Dangerous Pitfalls/consequence of Industry Promoted Current trend of PPP(public private partnership) at various levels and with details of Service delivery and history of movements against Water privatization.

The unresolved issue is "Capacity Building of the Govt to evaluate technology Choices". Since, Capabilities for delivery are not with the govt, but the Private sector. Each player has some advantage because of the technology or IP that they own.

Awaiting your feedback and suggestions for way forward.
--
warm regards
krishna kumar kj

http://in.linkedin.com/in/krishnakumarkj

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