Environmental justice as distributive justice....

Water, as a scarce and precious resource remains inaccessible to the poor in developing countries where groundwater management is completely neglected. The cost of groundwater is undervalued and exploited by the user who has no compulsion to restore or replenish water sources for future generations.

World-wide governments have implemented different forms of economic instruments that help to innovate and improve the quality of water. Regulatory instruments like the ‘command and control’ options have proved inefficient in attaining water pollution control objectives and conserving water resources. It is not clear as to what extent the collection of water cess has been effective in meeting those objectives. Textile industries, for example, use up water resources indiscriminately with no statutory demand to pay appropriate cost for the water so consumed. The textile dyeing units, have been making economic gains by functioning without appropriate effluent treatment systems, acting in total disregard to the High Court's direction.

Water-intensive industries pay a meagre amount as water cess without having to bear either the ‘opportunity costs’ for using up this scarce resource or the ‘external costs’for groundwater depletion and surface water contamination. Presently, water tariffs in India do not account for economic losses incurred due to depletion of water resources and fail to cover the costs of infrastructure required to deliver clean water and the costs of water conservation. It is time to revisit and re-evaluate water pricing policies that end up encouraging excessive use of surface water and depletion of groundwater levels.

Economic instruments make pollution control viable to businesses as they lower pollution abatement costs and yet provide no scope for business leaders to exercise the same negotiating power they wield over the design and implementation of command and control regulatory tools. Economic instruments tend to deter water pollution more than merely generating revenue. Among the economic instruments devised for control of water pollution, a levy on pollution, similar to carbon tax, might force businesses to pay for the use of natural resources and promote concepts of recycle, reuse and conservation.

World Bank describes four types of pollution charges that may be used to control water pollution and they include ‘effluent charges’ levied on the quantity and/or quality of the discharged pollutants, ‘user charges’ paid for the use of collective treatment facilities, ‘product charges’ levied on harmful products that go in as raw materials to the production processes and finally, ‘administrative charges’ like water cess that help install long-term water treatment and delivery systems. The inclusion of surcharge on potentially harmful products that are inputs to a production process could effectively make businesses look for environment friendly alternatives. The surcharge on pollution caused by certain raw materials may be refunded at the point of their return for disposal and recycling. India can do well with a combination of regulatory tools and economic instruments that aid in promoting pollution abatement techniques even as they generate substantial revenue.

Water pricing policies need to induce water-intensive industries to locate their units in places where the discharge of untreated water into rivers and water bodies is avoided, operational costs are considerably reduced and payments for restoration and replenishment of depleted natural resources are mandatory. These charges need to be substantial enough to create environment funds that might eventually help restore natural resources for posterity. Finally, governments need to strengthen their institutional capacity to monitor and enforce regulations effectively as a welfare measure.