CONFLICTS AROUND DOMESTIC WATER AND SANITATION IN INDIA CASES, ISSUES AND PROSPECTS Edited by K. J. Joy, Suhas Paranjape, Sarita Bhagat Water Aid, India Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India January 2014 Conflicts around Domestic Water and Sanitation in India: Cases, Issues and Prospects Edited by K. J. Joy, Suhas Paranjape, Sarita Bhagat © Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune, Maharashtra, India Supported by: WaterAid India, Delhi, India Cover Design and Layout by: Marion Jhunja Cover Photographs by: SOPPECOM Published by: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune c/o Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) 16, Kale Park, Someshwarwadi Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, Maharashtra, INDIA Tel: +91-20-2025 1168 / 2588 6542 Fax: +91-020-2588 6542 Email: [email protected] URL: waterconflictforum.org ; conflicts.indiawaterportal.org Copies are available at the above address First published in January 2014 The contents of this compendium may be used with due acknowledgement of the source. Any form of reproduction, storage in a retrieval system or transmission by any means requires a prior written permission from the publisher. Citation: Joy K. J., Suhas Paranjape, Sarita Bhagat, (Ed.), 2014, Conflicts around Domestic Water and Sanitation: Cases, Issues and Prospects, Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT UNDERSTANDING CONFLICTS AROUND DOMESTIC WAWAWATER AND SANITAAATION IN INDIA { i-xviii-xviii-xvii } K. J. JoyJoyK. , Suhas Paranjape, Sarita Bhagat and Shruti VisputeVisputeVispute CASE STUDY 1: THE BHOPAL DISASTER AND ITS AFTERMATH: CONFLICT OVER SAFE WAAATER, ENVIRONMENT AND JUSTICE { 1-18 }}{ Shalini Sharma CASE STUDY 2: COMPETING USES, USERS AND LEGAL RESPONSES: PLACHIMADA AND RAJSAMAND LAKE { 19-34 }}{ Sujith Koonan CASE STUDY 3: STSTSTAAATES IN CONFLICT: THE DELHI-HARYYYANA WAR FOR WAWAWATER { 35-52 }}{ Nivedita Khandekar CASE STUDY 4: RIGHT TO WATER IN KHANDWA, MADHYA PRADESH: CONFLICT OVER PUBLIC PRIVAAATE PARPARTE TNERSHIP { 53-74 }}{ Gaurav Dwivedi and Rehmat CASE STUDY 5: PRIVPRIVPRIVAAATIZED WATER DELIVERY SYSTEMS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION OF DELH I DELHI { 75-94 }}{ Meghna Agarwala and Anasuya Agarwala CASE STUDY 6: WATER TRANSFER FROM PERIURBAN TO URBAN AREAS: CONFLICT OVER WATER FOR HYDERABAD CITY IN SOUTH INDIA { 95-114 } Anjal Prakash, Sreoshi Singh and Lieuwe Brouwer CASE STUDY 7: PIPED WATER OR WATER IN RIVER: CONFLICT OVER URBAN DRINKING WATER VS RURAL LIVELIHOODS IN MAVAL, MAHARASHTRA { 115-130 } Jinda Sandbhor CASE STUDY 8: RURAL URBAN WATER TRANSFERS: CONFLICT OVER THE MANSI WAKAL DAM IN UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN { 131-150 } Neha Singh and N.C. Narayanan CASE STUDY 9: WATER CONTAMINATION AND RELOCATION IN BHOLAKPUR SLUM, HYDERABAD: CONFLICTS AND CONCERNS { 151-166 } Swati Sinha CASE STUDY 10: SMALL CONFLICT UNCOVERS BIG ISSUES: CONFLICT BETWEEN THE MANUAL SCAVENGING COMMUNITY AND SAVANUR TOWN { 167-181 } Manasi S. and M.S.Umesh Babu CASE STUDY 11: ACCESS TO ‘SAFE’ SANITATION FOR WOMEN: QUESTIONING A MYOPIC APPROACH { 182-193 } Loveleen Bhullar and Sujith Koonan ABOUT CONTRIBUTORS { 194-200 } ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On behalf of the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (Forum), we would like to thank each and everyone who have contributed to the preparation and production of “Conflicts around Domestic Water and Sanitation: Cases, Issues and Prospects”. Firstly, we thank all the authors for their valuable contribution. We are grateful for their timely response and patience to provide clarifications to our persistent queries. We also thank all the reviewers – Prof. Amita Shah, Shripad Dharmadhikary, Priya Sangameswaran, Prof. Philippe Cullet, Dr. Chandan Mahanta, Depinder Kapur, Pranab Choudhury and Himanshu Thakkar – for their critical feedback on the case studies. Their valuable inputs have helped to improve the content of the case studies. We would like to acknowledge the financial support and encouragement provided by WaterAid, India. Special thanks to Mamata Dash for her guidance, support and constant backing for bringing out this publication. We are grateful to Suchita Jain for working on all the maps included in the compendium and other SOPPECOM team members, especially Shruti Vispute and Pratima Medhekar, for their help in bringing out this compendium. In addition, we also appreciate the contribution of all those who have shared their photographs for the compendium. We thank Neeta Deshpande for the copy-editing, Marion Jhunja for the cover and layout and Mudra printers for the production of the report. Understanding Conflicts around intro Domestic Water and Sanitation in India K. J. Joy, Suhas Paranjape, Sarita Bhagat and Shruti Vispute Water is an integral constituent and a fundamental and vital requirement of all living creatures. For human societies, water fulfils a variety of domestic, agricultural, industrial and socio-cultural needs, maintains and nurtures ecosystems, and provides a source of livelihood for a large majority of people. On the earth, water is abundant in its various forms like seawater and ice, but the amount of available freshwater is a tiny proportion of the total water on earth. Humans, land animals and plants depend on this freshwater for their needs. However, the availability of freshwater is not uniform, and the complex interactions of diverse needs, demands and availability for human and other life forms leads to various kinds of disputes and conflicts. CONFLICTS AROUND DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION Water is a common pool resource used for different purposes. However, while it is a common pool resource it is utilised individually, and unlike a public good where the same good may be enjoyed by many people simultaneously without reducing its availability, in most of its uses, the same unit of water cannot be used simultaneously by two users; a unit used by one user makes it unavailable or reduces its availability for another user. This makes for a situation where there are various kinds of conflicts over water. The Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (hereafter Forum) has been working since 2003 on documenting water conflicts across India.1 In the course of this documentation, the Forum has also developed a broad typology of water conflicts (Joy et al. 2008). This typology covers almost all kinds of conflicts over water, from trans-boundary international conflicts to local conflicts. Below we describe some of the types that are particularly important for town or village drinking water supplies. 1 See Water Conflicts in India: A CONFLICT OVER EQUITY AND BETWEEN DIFFERENT USES Million Revolts in the Making, Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium In respect of competition between different uses, all water policy documents of Case Studies, Agony of Floods: acknowledge that water for domestic and drinking needs should be given the first Flood Induced Water Conflicts in priority over other uses. Besides the issue of competition between different uses, India, and Water Conflicts in Northeast India: A Compendium of there is the issue of competition between different sections who demand the Case Studies i same unit of water for the same use. Different users claim or come to establish their rights over the use of water from a common source, creating disputes. The challenge is therefore the equitable distribution of water and its effective management. The rich and the powerful get easy access to an amount of water more than sufficient for all their needs, while the vulnerable and poor sections of society are left fighting to fulfil their basic need. CASTE BASED WATER CONFLICTS Caste still persists in India in different forms, and prevents the marginalised sections of society from accessing their basic rights. The most oppressed sections are the Dalits, who still face prejudice over drinking water issues. This issue is well illustrated by a case from the Bharatpur region of Rajasthan. In Murwara Tehsil of Bharatpur district, there is one well near a temple where water is available for almost the entire year. However, the upper caste villagers do not allow the lower castes to access this well because they believe that if the lower castes use the temple well, they will defile the temple.2 In another incident ten years back, conflict erupted between the Dalits and the Savarnas (upper castes) in several villages in Mangaon tehsil in Raigad district of Maharashtra over accessing drinking water from public wells. These villages in Mangaon tehsil are situated within 20 to 30 km of Mahad, where some 85 years ago Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar launched a water Satyagraha by marching to the Chavdar tank to open up all public watering places to the Dalits (Paranjape et al., 2008). The incidents in the Mangaon villages show that not much has changed since the famous Mahad Satyagraha. The problem of caste and water is not a simple problem of water provisioning. Caste is inherent to the way habitats develop, the way they are located and the way they share the burden of shortages. Dalits and lower caste bastis almost invariably are poorly located, have access to relatively inferior sources if they are not excluded altogether, and receive the lowest priority when sharing shortages.3 CONFLICTS AROUND URBAN DRINKING WATER Indian cities are growing at a rapid rate, including metropolitan cities and small towns. The overall growth of population, migration to cities for better economic opportunities and the increasingly urban lifestyle