Sunday, February 2, 2014

Water for Thought

Let me confess. I don't understand politics in India! By that statement, I don't mean I don't know what are the issues facing the nation. I know that. I also know what are the possible solutions. What I don't understand is why do we Indians raise certain issues and then behave very differently on the same issues when it comes to observance. And I truly believe that the press in India is not a medium that appropriately highlights those views. But that is a subject for another time. 

Let me tell you a tale to make my point. I have an uncle come over from Delhi and is visiting us recently. He lives in a Society in a suburb of Delhi. It is a Society of 150 flats with 1200 sq feet and 800 sq feet flats. So you can make an educated guess on the people living there.I think most economists would classify them as upper middle class. And as is my question to most people from Delhi, I asked him "how are things after the AAP government?". And his immediate reply was "Our lives have not changed. In fact our Society's water bill has gone up from Rs. 70,000 a month to Rs. 90,000 a month. This thing about charging full amount if we consume even 1 liter more water than 700 liters a day is not fair". So I asked him to elaborate. Here is his most interesting explanation of their connect with water. 

He said, "In our Society each wing has 4 floors with 2 flats on each floor. On top of each such wing there are eight tanks of RCC, one each dedicated for each flat with a capacity of 750 liters. Every day, twice a day, these tanks are filled up with 750 liters of water, which means each household consumes 1500 liters of water a day". And then he broke the big news. He said "Every day in the morning, people flush all the water left in the tanks because they know fresh water is going to be filled up in the tank". My immediate reaction was "What?". He repeated it for me that "everyday in the morning, they would wash their compounds or find whatever other reason to flush out the tanks because they know fresh water is going to be filled up in the tank". He was quite serious and also quite miserable that people were doing this kind of wastage. I couldn't believe my ears. Here is a Society of 150 educated households and am I being told that they just waste water because they know that the 750 liters of water is going to be filled up twice a day. When I asked my uncle, isn't it therefore a good idea for everyone in the Society to put an individual meter so that they can take advantage of the free 700 liters of water per day policy of the new Government in Delhi. He said, "but everybody in the Society should agree no". Wow! Imagine if people in that Society implemented water meters in each flat. They would then be automatically incentivised to use up to 700 litres of water a day. A saving of cool 800 liters of water per household or 120,000 liters of water a day or 44 million liters of water a year! And this is one Society of 150 households with roughly 750 people. And imagine the savings to this community of Rs. 1 million a year in water charges. Money that can be used by these household for better purposes.

Now when you hear this, don't you think that AAP's policy of free water is a great idea. It sounds quite logical given this anomaly must exist more widely in Delhi. It's a win-win for all.

This is what I meant by saying I don't understand Politics in India. This is not the only example. Take our traffic sense. We all would love organized traffic on the road and we rue about this menace in India when we are abroad. But how many people stop at a red light. I had clients from abroad recently and they amusingly observed how cars and bikes kept creeping on towards the junction even when they had red light and the opposite side had a green light. They are just amazed that there aren't more accidents on the road! Obviously they don't know that maximum deaths on road happen in India.

I believe politics in India, is about us, We the People!

I hope this gives all of us Indians, some water for thought!

Cheers

- hiren