Report: Conference on Water Privatization: Learning from India and International Experiences

On behalf of the organisers of the Conference on Water Privatisation: Learning from India and International Experiences, held on 19th March 2013 in New Delhi, we are grateful to each of you for attending and participating in this conference. We appreciate you for taking the time and effort to be here. We also thank you for your participation as well as sharing your ideas and expertise.

We are also happy to share with you the detailed report of this conference. Please do let us know if you have any comment or suggestion.

On 19th March, following the conference, some of the campaign groups from different parts of India had a strategy meeting at the Indian Social Institute in New Delhi to chalk out the future course of action to take the fight against water privatization to the national level. In view of the larger threat of pushing the public private partnership in water sector in many more cities in India under JNNURM, it was felt that it is the right time to form a national platform of groups and activists working against water privatization to help each other and seek strength from each other in this difficult time when democratic governments in the states have been sold out to corporations. It was therefore resolved that a NATIONAL PLATFORM OF WATER ACTIVISTS will be formed to work on different aspects of water, be it privatization issue, conservation issue, river basin issues or water in the context of climate change or policy issues. However, the fight against any form of water privatization will be the key agenda of the NATIONAL PLATFORM. The national platform will try to contact with different groups who are campaigning against water privatization in their cities to come together. We will share our experiences, documents and strategies to gain strength and knowledge from each other.

In view of this, the Citizen’s Front for Water Democracy and Focus on the Global South is planning to organise the next level meeting of the National Platform in Nagpur, sometime in the end of May or early June 2013. This meeting will be co-organised with the Nagpur Municipal Corporation Employees Union

If you are willing to join the NATIONAL PLATFORM OF WATER ACTIVISTS and are interested to attend the meeting in Nagpur, please let us know by 15th May. We will soon send the invite of this meeting and will be happy to host you in Nagpur.