NEW DELHI: Accusing the Delhi Government and the Delhi Jal Board of succumbing to pressure from the World Bank and taking up privatisation of the Capital's water resources and water distribution, the National Council of the Communist Party of India has demanded a rollback of the move and threatened to release documents about the "secret deal" if the issue is not addressed urgently.

Briefing newspersons here on Saturday after a three-day conference of the CPI National Council, party general secretary A.B. Bardhan said privatisation of water resources and water distribution was being effected by the World Bank in the name of providing loans to the Delhi Government.

But, in reality, he said, documents procured under the Right to Information Act had revealed that the World Bank had been intervening at every stage, including the terms of reference of contract, eligibility and selection criteria for bidders, and then forcing the Delhi Jal Board to subvert and manipulate the process of award of contracts to ensure that they are awarded to its favourites even if it has to violate the very criteria enunciated by it.

Asserting that "this has been found in case of procuring consultancy contracts for Price Waterhouse Cooper'', the party resolution said the CPI condemned such interventions by the World Bank as "unwarranted and unacceptable".

Aware that the multinational water companies have a dubious history of running the water sector of a number of developing countries with their own commercial interests, the party said in all those countries the water companies had made huge and unjustifiable profits at the expense of the local citizens.

`Cancel contracts'

Charging that many of these companies were now trying to enter India through patronage, the CPI said all this was happening at a time when the citizens of Delhi were already paying a huge price for power privatisation.

As such the party has demanded "immediate cancellation of any contracts with the World Bank and its favoured companies" and urged the Government to have wider consultations with the political parties, the civil society organisations and experts to solve the water crisis.

Mr. Bardhan taking up the issue now is significant considering that some time back he had written a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit about problems pertaining to the highly controversial exercise of privatisation of power in Delhi.

But as he did not find the response to his letter satisfactory, he personally met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to present his views on the matter.

It was after this meeting that Ms. Gandhi had written to Ms. Dikshit strongly expressing her dissatisfaction with the functioning of the Delhi Government.

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