Abstract
Only a small section of India’s population has access to State supplied potable water. The remaining, particularly those in urban areas, relies on private water suppliers to satisfy their water needs. An informal and largely unregulated water market is created by these private actors, who typically extract groundwater and supply them through tankers. Being an unregulated market, the quality of the water is suspect. Further, heavy reliance on groundwater as the primary source to sustain these water markets has resulted in the over-extraction of aquifers to the point that it impedes its critical functioning. In the absence of any formal price discovery process, the costs that consumers pay are determined by the “animal instincts” of the market. This chapter identifies a human right-based conceptual framework to regulate private-groundwater markets. To this end, it examines the salience of the human right to water, followed by an analysis of the gaps in the current legal-administrative framework that violates rights. Lastly, it offers recommendations to fill-in these gaps.
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Kholsa has described this to be a general approach taken by the Supreme Court when it came to enforcement of socio-economic rights; see Khosla [27].
- 49.
See generally Gautam Uzir & Anr. v. Gauhati Municipal Corp., 1999 (3) GLT 110 (India); Chameli Singh v. State of UP, (1996) 2 SCC 549 (India); Delhi Water Supply and Sewage Disposal Undertaking v. State of Haryana, (1996) 2 SCC 572 (India); Wasim Ahmed Khan v. Govt. of AP, 2002 (5) ALT 526 (India); Vishala Kochi Kudivella Samrakshana Samithi v. State of Kerala, 2006 (1) KLT 919 (India).
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Supra note 53.
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Sharma [30].
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See Kumar and Puri [32].
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- 64.
The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, § 2 (j).
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Id. at § 16,18, 20 and 23.
- 66.
The Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011; The Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011.
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Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, Direction Regarding Packaged and Natural Mineral Watering sold in open market without BIS Certification, (2019).
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Supra note 64, at Chap. IX.
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Supra note 53.
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Menon, M. (2021). Regulating Groundwater Markets and the Human Right to Water. In: Khan, S.A., Puthucherril, T.G., Paul, S.R. (eds) Groundwater Law and Management in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2617-3_4
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