InDepth: World Wide Water Mafia #03: Urban Centers Are Havens of Water Leakage and Theft
IC InDepth Team
Mumbai, 30 August 2019
In urban giants like Karachi, Mumbai and Delhi, water leakage and outright theft cast a gloomy shadow. Each city grapples with an approximate water loss of 30 to 35 percent due to these challenges.
Water mafia networks, employing illegal pipelines by piercing official ones or establishing illicit connections to water canals, divert substantial quantities of water.
They even resort to tapping surface water from rivers, catering to disconnected slum communities. In India, these marginalized communities are meant to be supplied by water-authority-operated trucks, yet these deliveries often fall short unless accompanied by bribes.
The city of Delhi, for instance, operates 800 water tankers to provide subsidized water to those outside the official system, but irregularities abound.
Karachi: A Hub of Water Mismanagement
Karachi’s water mafias engage in multifaceted illegal activities, tapping into water hydrants, establishing unauthorized wells and pipelines for industries, and profiting from a chain of illicit actions.
A whopping 70 percent of pilfered water finds its way to industries and large businesses, with some 30 to 40 tanker-operating illegal traders pocketing as much as $16,000 per day.
Industries, large enterprises, and the impoverished alike become clients in this illegal water trade.
Delhi’s Water Paradox
Delhi, supplied by the Yamuna, Ganges, and Sutlej rivers, paradoxically faces significant water loss despite its water-rich sources.
Up to 60 percent of the city’s water supply evaporates into the ether due to leakages, theft, and smuggling.
With only 37 percent of the formal water system’s users settling their bills, losses of up to $1 billion were recorded from 2009 to 2012.
Illegal tapping from all three rivers and groundwater, along with unauthorized water tankers, compounds the crisis.
The volume of illicitly sourced water—300 to 500 million gallons daily—fuels a multimillion-dollar illegal trade, unfortunately devoid of proper treatment for human consumption.
National Reality: India’s Alarming Water Scenario
India faces a daunting challenge as approximately 76 million people grapple with inadequate water access, placing the nation among the top in terms of absolute numbers.
However, Papua New Guinea takes the lead with a staggering 60 percent of its population lacking access to safe water.
Despite India’s massive populace, it doesn’t claim a spot among the world’s top ten countries with the highest proportion of citizens deprived of clean water.
Durban’s Dilemma: A City Haunted by Water Theft
Durban, a prominent South African city, grapples with a staggering reality: approximately 35 percent of its water supply vanishes through theft and illegal or unpaid connections.
Zooming out to a national scale, the water loss issue is pervasive, estimated at a disconcerting 37 percent.
Monrovia’s Water Heist: The Push-Push Boys
Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, faces a double-edged water crisis. The city’s already insufficient official water pipelines are further preyed upon by illegal water providers, colloquially known as Push-Push Boys.
They hawk water at inflated prices within the city limits and its periphery, draining an astonishing 75 percent of the daily 6 million gallon water supply through theft and leaky pipes.
Angola’s Underground Water Trade
The delicate water distribution system in Angola faces a dual assault—both compromised and supplemented—by illegal water smuggling.
This illicit activity introduces an additional layer of complexity to the nation’s water access challenges.
Dar es Salaam’s Dilemma: Escalating Loss
Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam grapples with the alarming revelation that 57 percent of its water supply evaporates into the shadows due to theft and leaks.
This amounts to a staggering 171 million liters of the daily 300 million liters supply.
With a daily demand of 515 million liters and the potential loss scenario analyzed, the city faces a minimum shortage of 215 million liters daily—a grim outlook that underscores the urgency of addressing the issue.
Kampala’s Water Predicament: Unveiling the Culprits
Water theft is a challenge that transcends socioeconomic lines. Even in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, the narrative remains consistent.
Arrest data from 2014 to 2015 reveals that a majority of water thieves—1,170 individuals—were affluent residents and business proprietors. This includes stakeholders like mall owners, hoteliers, and car wash service providers.
Notably, water theft isn’t the sole domain of the well-off. The impoverished in Kampala also engage in this illicit practice.
However, their invisibility in the formal network exempts them from meter tampering, rendering them less conspicuous to water management authorities.
Jamaica’s Water Plight: A Widespread Predicament
In Jamaica, an unsettling reality takes center stage: a staggering one-third of total water usage—equivalent to over $400 million annually—falls victim to theft, spanning both affluent and impoverished communities alike.
This comprehensive loss encompasses unpaid water bills, some stretching across multiple years, alongside the deliberate destruction or tampering of meters.
A perplexing cycle ensues when the National Water Commission discontinues water supply to persistent bill evaders.
Often, these households and businesses opt for illicit reconnections to the official water source, all while evading payment for their water consumption.
Meter Tampering Conundrum: A Polarized Discourse
While meter tampering might appear as a straightforward manifestation of water theft, it introduces a complex and contentious dimension.
In South Africa, a pioneering nation in enshrining the human right to water through legislation, a chorus of dissenting voices has emerged against water metering systems.
Advocates of this stance contend that these systems, along with the practice of disconnection due to unpaid bills, infringe upon individuals’ human rights.
The landmark case of Mazibulo versus City of Johannesburg underscored this perspective, as South Africa’s highest court upheld the plaintiffs’ assertion that disconnections violated their right to water and placed their households in precarious situations.
Brazil’s Dilemma: A Water-Rich Nation Marred by Theft
Brazil, often dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of water” due to its substantial freshwater reserves and numerous large dams, faces a perplexing conundrum.
An alarming 37 percent of its water supply dissipates, with approximately half of this loss attributed to theft through fraudulent means, colloquially termed “gatos,” by both commercial establishments and households.
The issue is particularly pronounced in São Paulo, which encountered an acute drought and subsequent rationing in 2015, prompting water specialists to label it an “unprecedented water crisis in one of the world’s great industrial cities.”
However, this crisis mirrors the recurring struggles experienced by major cities in India and Pakistan.
Counterintuitively, the response has focused not on curbing water pilfering but on ambitious dam construction and grand engineering projects to bolster the city’s water supply from neighboring regions. This reactive approach is echoed in India and Pakistan as well.
The brazen theft of water in Brazil, akin to its counterparts in South Asia, extends beyond just the boundaries of slum areas, indicative of a broader pattern of illegal infrastructure access—also encompassing illicit electricity connections and unauthorized telephone and cable TV hookups.
Astonishingly, even amidst drought-induced turmoil, a social tolerance for such transgressions persists, as long as the perpetrators avoid detection.
Jordan’s Struggle: The Ongoing Saga of Water Theft and Smuggling
In the arid expanse of Jordan, a nation grappling with water scarcity, water theft and smuggling have woven a pervasive narrative.
This scenario is hardly surprising, considering the country’s desert landscape and limited water resources.
A notable surge in water theft and smuggling followed the watershed year of 1997 when the Jordanian government enforced a well drilling ban in response to critical aquifer depletion and rising water salinity.
The aftermath of these regulations witnessed a transition from unsustainable water usage to outright illicit and equally unsustainable practices.
This metamorphosis culminated in the illicit transportation of water via pipes to irrigate farmlands or by trucks for sale.
Astonishingly, this illicit endeavor contributes to an alarming 70 percent of water loss.
In a concerted effort to combat this issue, Jordanian authorities, between 2013 and the summer of 2016, embarked on a mission that saw the dismantling of 24,500 illegal water taps and pipes, the seizure of 780 illegal wells, and the confiscation of 41 drilling rigs.
Multifaceted Nature of Water Theft: A Varied Landscape
Water theft, like a chameleon, manifests in various forms contingent on the nature of the breach of existing regulations.
Its simplest manifestation entails utilizing water without remitting the corresponding payment.
Many consumers persist in neglecting their water bills for extended periods, while water authorities prove either unable or reluctant to curtail their supply.
Another facet surfaces when water usage surpasses the stipulated quota, be it from authorized boreholes, public water hydrants, or unpermitted taps by licensed or unlicensed users. Deliberate underreporting of water consumption also constitutes a form of water theft, spanning unregistered private wells or manipulation of water meters.
A vivid illustration exists in Mumbai, where a plethora of upscale establishments, businesses, hotels, and middle-class households resort to illegal wells or unauthorized booster pumps.
Significantly, the reach of water theft and smuggling transcends boundaries, impacting not only impoverished urban or rural settings but also affluent urban locales.
Next: InDepth: World Wide Water Mafia #04: Water Crimes Worldwide: A Far-Reaching Presence
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