The Hindu : BWSSB's plans to privatise water supply go awry

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 07, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

BWSSB's plans to privatise water supply go awry

Bangalore Jan. 6. Four years ago, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) signed agreements with two French companies to "partly privatise" water distribution in some parts of the city. The project appears to have been shelved.

No follow-up action has been taken on the agreements signed with Vivendi and Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux (the latter then broke up into four other companies and the agreement passed on to Ondeo Services). Ondeo Services closed down last year. But Ondeo Degremont, the part of Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux that builds water treatment and tertiary-stage sewage treatment plants (STPs) is still active.

The BWSSB has built treatment plants at Vrishabhavathi Valley and at Thorekadinalli. Two projects at Raja Canal and K&C Valley are on now. It has similar projects with the Bangalore Development Authority and the Karnataka Golf Association.

Vivendi has been quiet however, and is said to have closed shop here.

The BWSSB signed these agreements after the State Government hosted Global Investors' Meet (GIM) in 2000. "During GIM, many such agreements were signed, most did not take off," say the BWSSB officials. But the Government is yet to communicate its stance on privatising water distribution to the board.

In fact, last year when the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, inaugurated the 60 million litre per day (MLD) capacity plant at Vrishabhavathi, he assured a top French Government official present on the occasion that his Government would continue to involve the latter's Government and French companies in such projects. That STP was built under an Indo-French protocol with a HUDCO loan. As for private participation, the BWSSB has a Rs. 48 crore pilot project to cut unaccounted for water (UfW). Inaugurated last June, the project is implemented by U.K.-based Thames Water with Larson & Toubro. In 18 months, the two companies have to cut UfW - in an area of 40,000 consumers — from 31 per cent to below 15 per cent, and then operate and maintain (O&M) that area for 18 more months.

Later, the BWSSB will invite global tenders for a Rs. 400-crore project to cut UfW throughout the city. "The selected companies will also do O&M, issue bills and collect revenue, but only at our tariffs," said the BWSSB. Water would not become more expensive for citizens, the officials added.

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