Boring Water and Irritated Farmers – A Repetitive saga

Once again the farmers of Kerala are up in arms against the cola company (Now, I forgot which one it was) for sucking away the ground water away form their farms. Is there a solution. Me, the armchair expert believes so.

All cola companies and mineral water companies must be (legislatively) forced to ‘manufacture’ water from desalination units. All non-coastal plants should be shut down or moved to coastal areas. The impact of such a proposal would probably be –

Sea water is in abundance, a few million litres should not really affect he local ecosystem.
Farmlands can ,now, resume farming with ground water as in the good old days (admittedly , it might take a few good showers to bring back the water table, but surely NGos can build water bunds etc.)

Why Companies will complain ??
Because –
Desalination is an expensive process.
The conditions was not part of the FDI agreement blah blah
Capital Costs of setting up the plant is not negligible.

Why the Government must persist ?
Most Cola companies in India are multinationals having relatively easy access to capital and technology.
Costs of setting up desalination plants will remain high as long as industry donot adopt them. Once the cola companies do build up the plants technology transfer will happen, Desal manpower will become available. Desal technology will surely become cheaper in India.
Then, the local municipality can move in and coastal drinking –water starved cities like Chennai probably have their own low cost Desal plants.

Do I want the MNCs to indirectly subsidies Municipalities? ?
Yeah ! That’s what I want. If cost estimates of cola manufacture are half as true as they claim to be it would not cost three rupees to produce one litre of cola. At the same time the cost estimates for producing a litre of water from desal plants while expensive for piped home supply may be comparable, well if not comparable, atleast bearable by cola companies and their wealthy consumers.

Why this proposal may not work ??
1. Lotsa laws need to changed for this. Half-baked guesses by an expert (that’s me !) include Coastal Regulation rules amongst several legislation. And considering the way the Parliament works, it may take such a long time that the ‘affected parties’ may lobby successfully against it.
2. Cola and mineral water may become dearer in hinterland areas while they may cheaper around the peninsula – Law and duties may need to be refixed to ensure parity.
3. Admittedly, Mineral water companies may not have as deep pockets as the Cola companies; they may be granted a few years time to move to the coast.
4. The author of this piece is an armchair expert who has not indulged even in the barest of back-of-the-envelope computations.