India, New Delhi: water tanker privatisation aims to curb corruption

The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) [Delhi water board] has decided to privatise tanker management system to check water wastage and corruption in its own ranks. Four companies have shown interest and submitted technical proposals for the tenders issued by DJB. The contract would ensure a total revamp of the system and introduction of new technologies.

Officials say that this would help DJB monitor the movement of tankers to and from various delivery points. The project also proposes to put a check on water wastage due to leakages in tankers.

“There have also been complaints of our tankers supplying water to hotels and malls for extra money. With corruption prevailing within the department and in the absence of a monitoring system, it is difficult to say if the tankers even reach the destination,” a senior DJB official said.

The DJB’s decision to enter into a public-private partnership to revamp tanker management involves introduction of technological changes to tankers. These changes would include biometric identification for drivers, a GPS system to monitor the tanker movement, a flow meter to account for the amount of water taken and supplied, a chlorimeter to ensure the water quality and an auto lock system to put a check on leaking tankers.

The DJB is mandated to supply water tankers at 18,349 fixed delivery points in the city. Besides that, water tankers are also supplied to regular colonies in case of common emergencies like pipeline burst or shortage of raw water supply. The department owns 250 tankers and hires at least 600 private tankers on a daily basis to ensure supply to at least 1,600 unauthorised-regularised colonies.

Source: IBNS / newKerala.com, 07 Jun 2010

Pakistan, Karachi: ‘water mafia’ leaves Pakistanis parched and broke

Corrupt politicians allow businessmen to siphon off as much as 41% of the city’s water supply and turn around and sell it at exorbitant rates to residents, generating an estimated $43 million a year.

Name a cash cow in this sprawling city of ragged slums and glass-walled office buildings and it’s almost certain there’s an organized crime syndicate behind it.

The illegal operations, routinely referred to as mafias, are everywhere. There’s a land mafia that commandeers prime real estate, a sugar mafia that conspires to control sugar prices, and even a railway mafia that forges train tickets and pilfers locomotive parts.

For those on the city’s bottom rung, however, the underworld entity they revile the most is the water tanker mafia, a network of trucking firms that teams up with corrupt bureaucrats to turn water into liquid gold worth tens of millions of dollars each year.

The water tanker mafia’s prey can be found in slums like Karachi’s Gulshan-Sikanderabad neighborhood, where every morning people buy water from the tankers, lug the plastic jugs back to their homes on wooden carts, then come back three or four more times in the afternoon and evening to buy more.

A family that makes $100 a month can spend as much as a quarter of that on water, which, elsewhere in Pakistan, costs pennies and flows out of household taps.

Water scarcity isn’t the cause. Karachi has a steady water supply, and it has the network of pipes to pump ample water into every neighborhood, rich and poor.

But Karachi is also a city of opportunists forever on the prowl for under-the-table wealth. As municipal officials look the other way, businessmen illegally tap water mains, and use the makeshift hydrants to supply fleets of tankers that then sell water to businesses, factories and neighborhoods at inflated prices. As many as 272 million gallons a day are siphoned off by the trucks.

On a recent sunbaked afternoon, along a dirt lane filled with goats munching on piles of refuse, Momin Khan seethed as he filled another blue jug with water from a cistern replenished every other day by the water tankers.

“We’re poor laborers — we can’t spare this much for water,” said Khan, 27, a glass factory worker. “The water supply lines come right into this neighborhood, but there’s never any water. So I buy the same water that I should be getting through the pipes for free. I’ve got no choice.”

Karachi has nine hydrant locations where water supply companies can legally buy water and fill their tanker trucks. But scattered throughout the city are at least 160 illegal hydrants, said Ashraf Sagar, manager of the Orangi Pilot Project, a private organization that researches water issues in Karachi.

The siphoning takes place around the clock, Sagar said. It’s done in the dead of night, but also in broad daylight.

Along Manghopir Road, a bustling Karachi avenue lined with grease-covered car repair stalls and appliance storefronts, it’s easy to find a pair of tanker drivers standing on top of their trucks, filling up with a large blue hose from an illegal hydrant inside a red-brick building. Armed guards keep outsiders from meddling.

On average, a tanker fills up six times a day, Sagar said, siphoning as much as 41% of the city’s daily water supply, an amount that generates $43 million annually for tanker owners, according to Orangi.

“With this much money involved, it’s clear these are very wealthy people,” Sagar said. “They’re powerful mafias colluding with corrupt people in the government. So there’s really nothing ordinary Pakistanis can do to stop it.”

Shahnawaz Jadoon, a deputy administrative chief for the Gulshan-Sikanderabad neighborhood, said it was virtually impossible to clamp down on an enterprise that combines the clout of city government and the wealth of Karachi’s powerful business circles.

At times, illegal hydrants are shut down by city officials, only to reopen a week later. Activists said they didn’t know of anyone involved ever being arrested.

“The big reason why people don’t get the water they’re supposed to,” said Jadoon, “is that if they did, this whole system, the tanker mafia and this corrupt network, would shut down.”

See also: Pakistan: Karachi water shortage, IRIN, 16 Jan 2002

Source: Alex Rodriguez, LA Times, 16 Mar 2010

India, Mumbai: man dies in water protest

One man died in a violent protest against water shortages held outside the headquarters of Mumbai’s municipal corporation BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) on 3 December 2009. Insufficient rains have forced the BMC to impose steep water cuts until at least July 2010.

About 1,500 activists from the NGO Swabhimaan, led by its president Nitesh Rane, son of Revenue Minister Narayan Rane, raised slogans for clean and adequate water supply and tried to enter the BMC building. They were met by 500 police.

Viral Dholakia

In the scuffle, 43-year-old Viral Dholakia, state co-ordinator of Swabhimaan, fell to the ground. He was taken to the state-run GT Hospital, where doctors said that he complained of chest pain and breathlessness.

Dholakia died half an hour later, ironically on his birthday. Hospital authorities claimed that he did not die of a lathi (police stick)-charge injury, as there were no visible marks on his body.

Five had sustained major injuries. “This is disgusting. We went to ask for water and got beaten up instead. My family of 10 barely gets water for an hour a day,” said Mohmmad Umar, 50, a businessman, who had injuries all over his body.

“Almost everyday, fights break out in our area over water. There is hardly any water supply and residents fight for every drop,” said Mohmmad Ambir, 35, a Mulund resident who also suffered severe injuries.

[...] Addressing the crowd, Nitesh Rane said, “If the water supply is not restored immediately, we will not allow the Commissioner, Mayor and corporators of the ruling Sena-BJP to walk on the roads.”

[...] The police detained Nitesh and his supporters at Azad Maidan Police Station and later released them on bail.

Protesters came from Vasai, Virara

Swabhimaan managed to get protesters from as far as Vasai and Virar, which do not even fall under BMC’s jurisdiction. The Traffic Department confirmed that the organisation had sought permission to get 75 buses from outside city limits to carry supporters to the protest venue.

Nitesh picked wrong day

Nitesh Rane would have done well to check the schedules of acting municipal commissioner R A Rajeev, Mayor Shraddha Jadhav and additional municipal commissioner Anil Diggikar, who is in-charge of water supply projects, as all these important functionaries were out of the city.

Finding no one else, Nitesh only met AMC A K Singh, in-charge of Education and Security along with eastern suburbs. Rajeev and Jadhav were in New Delhi to receive the prize BMC has won for being the best civic body across the country. Diggikar is on leave as his father has expired.

Is water mafia at work?

Though it cannot be established that any political party supports water mafias who break into the BMC water mains, sources from the civic body allege that the strong lobby has political patronage.

According to an official from BMC, ever since the drive to take action against illegal connections was launched, threat calls to department officials have increased. “Because of our drive, most of the water mafia panicked and we believe that they are trying to put pressure on us by using their political connections.

The lobby is so influential that it has made crores in this business. So, they are protesting in a different manner just to divert public attention,” he alleged.

‘We didn’t order lathi-charge’

“At first, the crowd was quite peaceful, but then they broke the BMC’s security bunkers at the main gate. From there, they headed towards Gate 3. Here, they tried to use brute force to get inside the headquarters. The police who were on duty were shoved around and they lathi-charged in retaliation. None of my officers specifically ordered a lathi charge,” said DCP Zone I Vishwas Nangre-Patil.

Nearly 30 people were injured in the protests outside the BMC HQ. The protests became violent when the mob tried to forcibly enter the BMC but was lathicharged by police. Photo: Bombay Mirror

Senior Inspector Bhaurao Bhawale of the Azad Maidan police station said, “People in the crowd were intent on getting inside the BMC building and damaging government property. We have taken action against those responsible in accordance with the law,” he said.

According to police, 21 persons were arrested and charged under Section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), Section 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), Section 341 (wrongful restraint), Section 452 (punishment for assault or criminal force other than on grave provocation) of the Indian Penal Code.

Source: Mumbai Mirror, 04 Dec 2009

Afghanistan, Badakhshan: enclave seen as model for development

A New York Times article tells the story of how direct grants to a village council in Jurm, Badakshan province, have reduced corruption and helped the community set up and manage their own water system and to introduce education for girls. This development model of providing small grants, often less than US$ 100,000, to village councils, has been replicated in thousands of other villages as part of Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program, set up in 2003.

Read excerpts from the full article below.

Small grants given directly to villagers have brought about modest but important changes in this corner of Afghanistan, offering a model in a country where official corruption and a Taliban insurgency have frustrated many large-scale development efforts.

Since arriving in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States and its Western allies have spent billions of dollars on development projects, but to less effect and popular support than many had hoped for.

Much of that money was funneled through the central government, which has been increasingly criticized as incompetent and corrupt. Even more has gone to private contractors hired by the United States who siphon off almost half of every dollar to pay the salaries of expatriate workers and other overhead costs.

Not so in the Jurm valley in the province of Badakhshan, in the northeast. People here have taken charge for themselves — using village councils and direct grants as part of an initiative called the National Solidarity Program, introduced by an Afghan ministry in 2003.

Before then, this valley had no electricity or clean water, its main crop was poppy and nearly one in 10 women died in childbirth, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

Today, many people have water taps, fields grow wheat and it is no longer considered shameful for a woman to go to a doctor.

If there are lessons to be drawn from the still tentative successes here, they are that small projects often work best, that the consent and participation of local people are essential and that even baby steps take years.

[...] Jurm was tormented by warlords in the 1990s, and though it never fell to the Taliban, the presence of the central government, even today, is barely felt. The idea to change that was simple: people elected the most trusted villagers, and the government in Kabul, helped by foreign donors, gave them direct grants — money to build things like water systems and girls’ schools for themselves.

Local residents contend that the councils work because they take development down to its most basic level, with villagers directing the spending to improve their own lives, cutting out middle men, local and foreign, as well as much of the overhead costs and corruption.

[...] The grants were small, often less than $100,000. The plan’s overall effectiveness is still being assessed by academics and American and Afghan officials, but the idea has already been replicated in thousands of villages across the country.

Anecdotal accounts point to some success. There have even been savings. When villages in the Jurm Valley wanted running water, for instance, they did much of the work themselves, with help from an engineer. A private contractor with links to a local politician had asked triple the price. (The villagers declined.)

[...] One basic problem was literacy, said Ghulam Dekan, a local worker with the Aga Khan Development Network, the nonprofit group that supports the councils here. Fewer than a third of Afghans can read, making the work of the councils painfully slow. Villagers were suspicious of projects, believing that the people in the groups that introduced them were Christian missionaries.

[...] Most projects, no matter how simple, took five years. Years of war had smashed Afghan society into rancorous bits, making it difficult to resist efforts by warlords to muscle in on projects.

“They said, ‘For God’s sake, we can’t do this, we don’t have the capability,’ ” Mr. Dekan said. “We taught them to have confidence.”

[...] But forcing conditions would have violated a basic principle of the approach: never start a project that is not backed by all members of the community, or it will fail.

“People have to be mentally ready,” said Akhtar Iqbal, Aga Khan’s director in Badakhshan. If they are not, the school or clinic will languish unused, a frequent problem with large-scale development efforts.

Five years later, in the village of Fargamanch [...] 3,270 families have taps for clean drinking water near their homes, reducing waterborne diseases.

The councils are also a check on corruption. When 200 bags of wheat mysteriously disappeared from the local government this year, council members demanded they be returned. (They were.)

When a minister’s aide cashed a check meant for a transformer, Mr. Ataullah spent a week tracking down a copy. (The aide was fired.)

“The government doesn’t like us anymore,” Mr. Azghari said, laughing. “They want the old system back.”

Source: Sabrina Tavernise and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times, 13 Nov 2009

Nepal: anti-corruption authority slams water authority for tender irregularities

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has claimed that the Nepal Water Supply Corporation (NWSC) has committed irregularities in the supply and delivery of ductile iron pipes fitting and MS pipes. Issuing a press release, the CIAA has said while awarding the contract, the NWSC had not properly called the tender-bid.

It accused that the technologies used in the iron pipes were not of standard level. The Nepal Water Supply Corporation has not made any provision for making the registration of its tender-bid at the NWSC Butwal Branch and failed to open tender-bid at its central office. Moreover, the irregularities have also been seen after the period of bid validity and bank guarantee was extended. The task of purchasing pipes and fitting supplies too was full of shortcomings. So, the CIAA has directed the NWSC not to commit such mistakes while awarding tender-bids to the suppliers and make all its financial dealings transparent.

The CIAA is also investigating irregularities at Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL). Complaints have been filed at CIAA about the irregularities in water supply from the Bode Treatment Plant of the company. The investigation was started after the CIAA got information of involvement of chiefs of the company, branch office and distribution section for making unequal distribution of water through its different branches and supplying water in different areas after collecting money illegally.

KUKL staff are objecting to the appointment of former legal officer at the KUKL Hemraj Bhattarai as the CIAA investigation officer. They claim that many irregularities took place while Bhattarai was in office and that he could misuse the investigation to hide his own eventual wrong doings.

But, Chief Commissioner of the CIAA Lalit Bahadur Limbu told that the Bhattarai had been sent as a technical expert. “We have sent Bhattarai for monitoring as he knows about water supply systems,” said Limbu, adding, “If there are irregularities, there will be strong investigation.”

Source: The Rising Nepal / NGO Forum, 28 Oct 2009 ; Kantipur / NGO Forum, 27 Oct 2009

India’s water crisis: when the rains fail

Many of India’s problems are summed up in its mismanagement of water, [which includes corruption and unsustainable subsidies]. Now a scanty monsoon has made matters much worse.

[...] Around 450m [Indians] live off rain-fed agriculture, and this year’s monsoon rains, which between June and September provide 80% of India’s precipitation, have been the scantiest in decades. Almost half India’s 604 districts are affected by drought, especially in the poorest and most populous states—such as Bihar, which has declared drought in 26 of its 38 districts. [...] That also means less water for thirsty cities, including Delhi, where 18m people live and the water board meets around half their demand in a good year.

[...] India’s extremes of hydrology, poverty and population present vast difficulties for water management which it has never mastered. [...] Increasingly frequent droughts [...] will accentuate India’s problems, with the monsoon rains, which supply over 50% of much of India’s annual precipitation in just 15 days, predicted to become even more contracted and unpredictable. At the same time, the rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers promises to deprive the great rivers of the Indian sub-continent, the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra, of their summertime source. This threatens a triple whammy: of longer dry seasons, in which these rivers do not flow, and more violent wet seasons.

Despite daunting seasonal and regional variations, [India] should have ample water for agricultural, industrial and household use. But most of it falls, in a remarkably short time, in the wrong places. India’s vast task is therefore to trap and store enough water; to channel it to where it is most needed; and, above all, to use it there as efficiently as possible. And on all three counts, India fares badly. Without huge improvements, according to a decade-old official estimate, by 2050, when its population will be a shade under 1.7 billion, India will run short of water.

There are already signs of the conflict this would cause [...] Maharashtra and Karnataka are now furiously building dams and diversions [on the Krishna river] … in Orissa 30,000 farmers laid siege to a reservoir in 2007 to try to stop factories using its waters … Rajasthan has seen similar protests against the diversion of water to its growing cities … in one, five farmers were shot dead by police.

[...] The government’s main solution is to build more large dams and river diversions [...] but given the decrepitude of much of its existing water infrastructure, and its profligate ways with water, its more urgent priorities are to repair and reform.

[But] without expensive maintenance [...] grand dams and irrigation schemes tend to be as inefficient as they are environmentally destructive. And India’s corrupt, underfunded and overmanned state irrigation departments—UP’s, for example, employs over 100,000 people—often provide no maintenance at all. As a result, each year India is estimated to lose the equivalent of two-thirds of the new storage it builds to siltation. Bad planning, often as a result of inter-state rivalries, causes more waste. Thus, between 1992 and 2004 India built 200 large and medium-sized irrigation projects—and the area irrigated by such schemes shrank by 3.2m hectares.

[In] many places, including productive Punjab and Haryana, whose rather well-off farmers also get free or cut-price electricity, the rate of groundwater extraction is unsustainable. Nearly a third of India’s groundwater blocks were defined in 2004 as “critical, semi-critical or over-exploited”. [...] Satellite maps released by America’s NASA last month showed that north-western India’s aquifers had fallen by a foot a year between 2002 and 2008: a loss of 109 cubic km (26 cubic miles) of water.

As bore-holes run dry, as those over the hardrock aquifers of southern-central India do on a monthly basis, many poor people may be deprived of safe drinking water. Currently, 220m Indians lack this. Not all India’s groundwater is potable anyway; in places, it is getting seriously polluted. And India’s groundwater reserves will be especially missed when climate change makes surface-water sources even more sporadic.

Some excuse this resolute destruction by saying that India’s farmers do not understand groundwater. But they know when it is running out.

[But] set against [free water and electricity and government guarantees to purchase rice at a "minimum support price”] Punjab’s efforts to conserve its groundwater, mainly by telling farmers not to transplant paddy before the monsoon rains, are rather puny.

[With] over a quarter of India’s electricity given free or cut-price to farmers [...] state power utilities are bust. [But] two chief ministers who recently tried charging farmers for electricity, in AP and Madhya Pradesh, were kicked out of office.

The subsidy raj is not confined to farmers. Many municipal governments price water well below cost, and therefore struggle to supply it. Delhi, where the water board’s revenues cover only 40% of its operating costs, should have plenty of water. It draws 220 litres per citizen, more than Paris. But half of it disappears from leaky pipes. To mend these, workmen, having no underground maps, must dig up and sift through a tangled mass of pipes and cables.

Predictably, for a couple of hundred rupees a month, posh south Delhi gets the best water supply. When its taps run dry, the locals, including India’s political and bureaucratic elite, pump groundwater—often illegally. By one estimate, bore-holes provide 40% of the capital’s water; and south Delhi’s groundwater [...] is being depleted by up to three metres a year. But tube-wells, which cost around $600, are no option for Delhi’s poor, including 4m slum-dwellers. To augment their supply they must buy water, of dubious quality and at extortionate prices, from a well-connected water mafia.

In fiery June residents of Sangam Vihar, a poor suburb of south Delhi, rioted after getting no water for two weeks. In normal times, according to Vishnu Sharma, a 36-year-old resident, he and his family receive, at unpredictable times, around an hour and a half of muddy piped water each week. They pay $2 for this, he said—and another $20, or a quarter of his factory wage, to private water-sellers in cahoots with corrupt water-board officials. “So why bother complaining?” he said angrily.

Who could deny that rich Delhiites must pay more for water, so the city’s poor can get more? The rich, of course. In 2005 a World Bank-sponsored effort to reform the water board was shot down by local NGOs. As well as worrying, reasonably, about the bidding process for contracts, they were outraged to discover that, in return for round-the-clock clean water, the targeted households would be charged about $20 a month—or what Mr Sharma pays his local water don.

To make farmers use less water, they must pay, or pay more, for electricity. [...] To charge farmers more for electricity, utilities will have to improve supply. And farmers must learn to use water more efficiently.

Selling groundwater to cities, as farmers outside Chennai have done, is one possible answer. Another, to keep up India’s food production, is to spread the use of modern seeds and other technologies—such as an improved system of paddy cultivation that uses half as much water and has boosted yields in Tamil Nadu and AP.

[...] In dry areas, where profligate water-use by one farmer can make many wells run dry, farmers have been persuaded to share information on rainfall, groundwater levels and cropping, and so collectively regulate themselves. One attempt at this in central AP involves 25,000 farmers.

And India must have more dams[but] India’s state governments would do better to concentrate on building and restoring millions of small water storages, tanks and mini-reservoirs, and put local governments in charge of them.

Source: Economist, 10 Sep 2009

Nepal, Kathmandu: water utility KUKL under scrutiny amid continuing water shortages

New accusations of irregularites are adding to the frustation of consumers in the Kathmandu Valley, where water company, KUKL, is not able to supply enough drinking water either through pipelines or by tankers.

First, Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) was not able to spend its allocated annual budget of Rs. 48 million meant for improving water supply infrastructure, and is now asking the government to reallocate the remaining budget in other areas such as voluntary retirement schemes. Earlier, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), which holds 30 per cent shares in KUKL, had raised questions about the utility’s extravagance on monthly “meeting allowances” and failure in delivery.

“KUKL is a total mess and is serving as a playground for donor agencies,” said Prakash Amatya, executive director of NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation, which has been advocating transparency, accountability and integrity in KUKL. “It is no wonder if most of the budget is spent on consultants’ salaries.”

Second, local residents in Kaldhara found out that KUKL staff had organised an unscheduled water delivery one day at midnight while only informing their relatives about it. Kaldhara residents get water only once every 5 days.

Third, former project staff and other government officials, including Former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, have been accused of unauthorised use of eleven expensive vehicles belonging to the Melamchi Water Supply Project. In some cases government registration plates have been replaced by private ones. Meanwhile the project is spending Rs. 0.3 million a month on hired vehicles for its consultants.

The Kathmandu Valley needs about 280 million litres of water daily but KUKL can only supply 150 million litres in the rainy season and 100 million litres in the dry season. About 200 tankers are needed to supply additional drinking water in the Valley but there are only 160 tankers available. Many private tanker operators, some of whom are suspected of supplying untreated surface water, are filling the gap.

Groundwater sources are also being depleted in the Kathmandu Valley, where groundwater levels are decreasing and handpump wells are drying up. KUKL has reported about a 15% decrease in water production from groundwater sources as well.

KUKL is preparing a two-year pre-Melamchi Drinking Water Project before the completion of the main Asian Development Bank-supported Melamchi Water Supply Project. KUKL has asked the government to allocate the Rs. 520 million in the coming fiscal year for the project.

KUKL is a private-partnership company set up in February 2008 to replace the Nepal Water Supply Corporation as a pre-condition to get funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the major donor for the Melamchi Water Supply Project.

Source: The Kathmandu Post / NGO Forum, 05 Jun 2009 ; Annapurna Post / NGO Forum, 04 Jun 2009 ; Bikash Thapa, Kantipur / NGO Forum, June 26, 2009 ; Dhana Khatiwada, Gorkhapatra / NGO Forum, 27 Jun 2009 ; Mahesh Chaurasiya, Kantipur / NGO Forum, 23 Jun 2009 ; Dinesh Karki, Nagarik / NGO Forum, 25 Jun 2009

Indonesia: Controversy over clean-up plans for Java’s biggest river

The River Citarum in Indonesia’s populous Java Island is one of the world’s most polluted rivers but plans to clean it up are controversial.

By the time the 270km river, with its source in West Java, has passed some 2,000 factories and reached the Jakarta suburb of Bekasi, it is highly polluted, though many residents use water from it to wash their dishes and clothes, and even to cook food. Some 80 percent of Jakarta’s surface water comes from the river.

In December 2008, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) granted a US$500 million loan to the government for clean-up operations. Over a 15-year period, the ADB money should allow the government to rehabilitate the entire river basin.

The plan supports sanitation projects and seeks to provide safe water to those along its banks, while at the same time improving the lives of some 28 million people in its vicinity.

However, the People’s Alliance for Citarum (ARUM), an NGO, is concerned about corruption in the allocation of the ABD funding, and the project’s effectiveness. It said there was a lack of “monitorable, reportable and verifiable indicators to combat and prevent corrupt practices”.

But according to ADB spokesman Chris Morris, “fear” of possible corruption should not hold up projects that will ultimately improve the lives of many. A series of oversight measures “will also reduce the risk of corruption”, Morris said, citing community-based approaches, clear and transparent information systems and external monitoring.

Sunardhi Yogantara, director of Citizens Care for the Environment, agrees, saying concerns about corruption should not overshadow the urgent need to act now. “If nothing gets done, the river will die and that would be a catastrophe.”

Diana Gultom of Debtwatch Indonesia, a member of the ARUM coalition, is worried about the “absence” of a compensation and relocation plan for some area residents. The ADB wants to relocate close to 900 households, but final sites have yet to be agreed.

Yogantara also highlighted the health risks of living near the river, especially in the dry season, when “the river becomes an open sewer.”

Setiawan Wangsaatmaja, who has conducted research into health conditions near the river, said: “Especially during the rainy season we found a lot of cases of skin disease, diarrhoea and acute respiratory problems.”

Meanwhile, there others whose livelihoods depends on the pollution, like Edi Jundedi, a 56-year-old grandfather who sells plastic bottles fished from the river for 13 US cents a kilo.

Al Jazeera report on Indonesia’s “river of rubbish”

Source: IRIN, 23 Jun 2009

Indonesia: Police corruption unit to question officials over dam disaster

Police will question three Tangerang regency and South Tangerang municipal administration officials over the Situ Gintung disaster.

One of the officials, Dedi Sutardi, the head of the Tangerang Public Works Agency, said Thursday he would go to the Jakarta Police headquarters without a lawyer because he would testify only as a witness.

His agency is responsible for the maintenance and rehabilitation of the Situ Gintung reservoir.

The other two are Dedy’s predecessor at the agency, Hermansyah, and the newly installed South Tangerang Public Works Agency head, Eddy Adolf Nicolas Malonda.

Police corruption unit chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Aris Munandar said the questioning would begin Friday.

On Wednesday, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Abubakar Nataprawira said police had begun looking for evidence and questioning officials, experts and local residents to determine whether the disaster was caused by negligence.

“At the moment, we haven’t decided whether the embankment collapsed due to weather conditions or lack of maintenance. Once we have enough evidence and testimony, we will be able to determine who should be held responsible,” he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

A National Police forensics team arrived at the reservoir Tuesday.

Selamet Daroyni, executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) Jakarta branch, said local residents believed negligence was the main factor in the collapse of the embankment.

“Some locals told me they began noticing small cracks appearing in the embankment of the dam in the last two years,” he said.

Trisakti University urban planning expert Yayat Supriatna said Sunday the authorities’ failure to maintain the reservoir extended well before this.

Pitoyo Subandrio, head of the Ciliwung-Cisadane Flood Bureau at the Public Works Ministry, insisted the collapse was purely down to adverse weather condition.

“The rainfall was extremely unpredictable, causing the water volume to increase drastically,” he said.

The ensuing flash flood claimed 100 lives, with several people still reported missing.

Another 600 people were made homeless, forced to seek refuge at the nearby Muhammadiyah University Jakarta (UMJ).

On Thursday, Banten Governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah visited the area and said she had prepared a “more proper” shelter at the Wisma Kerta Mukti building. Those sheltering at UMJ will be relocated Saturday.

She added the displaced people could stay at the new shelter until the government had finished rebuilding their homes.

Victims and volunteer workers at the UMJ shelter continued to be bombarded with an outpouring of relief aid, with some of the aid items outnumbering the victims.

“There’s an overload of relief aid for the victims, and it keeps pouring in. We have no idea what to do with it,” said Rahmat Sahlan, the main disaster post coordinator. (bbs)

Link

Sri Lanka: SLWP and Water Integrity Network Partnership Roots Out Corruption

On Thursday, February 12, 2009, the Daily Mirror in Sri Lanka reported the arrest of seven illegal sand miners by Bingiriya police. In a separate article on the same day, the paper reported that more stringent laws against illegal sand mining are to be introduced in order to protect the environment.

In 2008, the Sri Lanka Water Partnership (SLWP) began working with the Water Integrity Network (WIN) to fight corruption surrounding illicit and unregulated river sand mining. Together the two agencies produced an integrated package of activities, including awareness programmes, brochures, posters, and a documentary. Police from Bingiriya had participated in the awareness programs. Police attendance was over 150% of target in all dialogues with community representatives.

Illegal sand mining contributes to river-bank collapse and lowers water tables, causing havoc to ecosystems, community water needs and the livelihoods of fishermen. Erosion undermines bridges and irrigation infrastructure, productive land is lost and stagnant water breeds disease.

[...] The SLWP-WIN partnership-of anti-corruption action in the water sector will be highlighted at the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, in March [2009] during a side event titled “Beyond the Global Corruption Report 2008: Promoting Water Integrity through Partnerships”.

A draft completion report, information sheets, posters and photos of the river sand mining project are avaialable on the Sri Lanka Water Partnership (SLWP) web site.  See below one of the project posters and a video on sand mining by the he Access Initiative Coalition of Sri Lanka.

Source: GWP, 18 Feb 2009

SLWP poster on Sand River Mining