Water, Water Everywhere . . . but scarcely a drop that is rationally priced. Megha Bahree

The Third World Center for Water Management in Mexico City is managed by Asit Biswas, an authority in water resources engineering. Having migrated from India to England and Canada and having examined the water programs worldwide as an advisor to the executive director of the UN Environmental Program, he argued that the world has sufficient water to 2060. Cognizant of the study by McKinsey about the growing demand for water and the report from the World Economic Forum that water shortages will decrease crop yield and, therefore, grain production as populations increase, he attributed water problems to the low cost of water. The low cost, he claimed, results in waste. He countered the argument that water is a basic human right by comparing water to food, another commodity put forth as a right. People must pay for food and they should pay for water, he contended. He supported tiered pricing as an equitable method of distributing this basic resource. Instituting tiered pricing would encourage non-metered users to install meters. Furthermore, tiered pricing would increase the revenues utilities receive and enable them to cover the cost of operations. Ideally, utilities should charge water at its marginal cost. Understanding the political resistance to this policy, he urged clients "to charge an amount that covers at least the operation and maintenance costs of the water utilities and over a period to time progresses toward marginal cost pricing" (p. 30). He concluded, "the universal access to clean water will never be realized if water supply is free or heavily subsidized" (p. 3).

Bahree, M. (2009, December). Water, water everywhere . . . but scarcely a drop that is rationally priced. Forbes, pp. 28-30.