Water Privatisation & Reforms

Manthan has been studying various aspects related to privatisation and commodification of water, including alternatives to privatisation, and in particular all the processes going on under the name of reforms in the water sector.

We have a very broad understanding of privatisation, to mean any mechanism that gives any private player a control of any part of the water system. By commodification, we mean any arrangement where water is a commodity that is bought or sold, and where profits can dominate other concerns. Such a broad is proposed because this is the definition that can help us understand the impacts of privatisation and commodification of water in their true nature and extent.
An important component of this theme is working together closely with communities in the relevant cities and towns, and building their capacities to be able to independently intervene in local developments.

The outputs and insights from these studies has been categorized as below.
Kindly click below on the respective tiles to go to each section.

This section looks at overarching processes and developments under water sector reforms, including privatisation and commodification of water.

This looks at reforms which are mainly going on at the state level, as water is a state subject. These reforms often include policy and legal measures focussing on commercialisation, marketisation and privatisation in the water sector.

Databases of privatised water projects in India, water sector reforms in various states, and two other related databases. Due to resource constraints, we have not been able to maintain these databases after March 2013. But archived databases till this date are available.

Detailed Case Studies of important projects in water privatisation from various parts of the country. Currently maintained as an archived section.

This Section contains videos and podcasts on issues related to privatisation, commodification and reforms in the water sector.

To be updated…