JUSCO kicked out of water supply in Mysore

Excerpts from DNA report: “I have allowed JUSCO to continue laying pipe and creation of infrastructure for water distribution network” Gowda said.

Excerpts from ToI report: "I've directed the officials to handle water supply by a taskforce. This will be in place for two months," he said.The move comes ahead of MCC's assertion that the water crisis will ease by mid-April when the 12 overhead tanks will be charged.

From the above, it appears to be more of a crisis management arrangement, than a discontinuation of the contract with JUSCO, as is sought to be made out here, and as various vested interest groups have been furiously working towards from day one, which becomes clear from a reading of this post.

Now, it is not as if the KRS dam suddenly came into existence some 14 km from Mysore. It has been there for over a century now. And, the water supply problem didn't start after JUSCO came into the picture. JUSCO came into the picture precisely because the government-owned Vani Vilas Water Works (VVWW), which was handling the supply all these years, was found lacking in capacity (keeping aside the matter of corruption, for now). Now, with all the vested interests joining forces to throw out JUSCO, it will go back to VVWW, making the vested interests happy. But, will it solve Mysore's problems? Hardly.

Not just water supply, but even other key infrastructure areas like public bus transport services, power supply etc are even today in the 19th century mode in the country, even as most other services involving the private sector have moved towards becoming world-class; likewise with products, compared to those made in the PSU's and the so-called ordinance factories.

As such, whereas these areas should normally have provided the venues for rapid growth of the economy, but because of the monopolistic hold of the PSU's, perpetuated by the vested interests, the status quo remains, leaving the country and its citizens (particularly the aam aadmi) to pay a huge price.
 

I was their in Hubli recently and surprised to see 24 x 7 water supply in few wards where so called elite reside ( including my relative )

When their is so much draught  exists in North  Karnataka & even Mysore region,  water has become scare every where,  I was surpised to see 24 x 7 supply and residents have no concern on saving water in these few wards where Pvt fellow is supplying.

Their are hardly few sources of water for twin cities Hubli -Dharwad & most part of the  twin city is having water  poblem  as source of water is on dry.

If this type of 24 / 7 concept of water supply is rolled,  imagine, what will happen during failure of rain.  Now Complet Bangalore is suffering and  ground water level is going down as mis-use of water. 

With all leakage & corruption,  we can not sustain 24 x 7 supply  which will make all of us addicted to mis-use of water in the long run and in the  name of Privatisation as even though we can afford to pay for high  rate.

 ... is to outsource more and more so that private enterprises get "experience". When sarkaari companies run things, you would not even come to know of what's wrong. Its like saying no company has the experience running city bus services at BMTC/BEST scale. How will there be, when you have not done anything at all to build such capacity.

If JUSCO has not been able to do the job, I am with you in throwing stones at them. But that in no way is a justification of going against outsourcing. Just replace JUSCO with whoever says will be able to do the job better. After 3-4 merry go rounds, things will settle down.

The so called "profits" are there for the taking. In one case, an indian company makes the money, and would distribute it to its employees or shareholders. In other case, it goes to you know which country's banks, and you know what exclusinve group of people. Its a shame that we know so much about what goes on and can't bloody write a word here for lack of so called "proof".

Its easy for govt to victimize anybody if it wants to. If it wants to make the contract work its even easier to sit JUSCO down & haul them over the coals to get their act together, which seems to be the case here. 

But to be fair I dont respect the attitude of a lot of private players in India servicing Indian market. 'Dhandha' seems to matter more than taking care of the outcome from their products/services. Part of the balme has to be with the (lack of) contract management practices within the beraucracy. Some professional training there might help them manage operations better.

@ Sanjeev  -  Good to read a first hand report about water supply in Hubli-Dharwar.

Now, 24 X 7 supply can continue only as long as water is available at the source (reservoir). And, the drawal from the source, I am sure, is still in the control of the government agencies, and that's how it should be. When the water falls below a certain level, in summer months, the supply will have to be regulated.

The major difference with the pressurised system is that you can avoid the individual sumps and overhead tanks, since, even when regulated, there will be a definite pattern. Of course, all that depends on how much accountability has been built into the contract arrangement.
 

 customer satisfaction, maintaining schedules & other relevant service quality parameters - all these go directly against maximization of profit

No it is not. There are countless examples of incentive/penalty schemes in this world, especially in O&M cotracts, as old as contract management itself. But all this depends on the ability & capability of the customer (in this case GoK) to monitor, track & manage all these for each vendor with data & transparency. If we want to hide behind ideologies & generalisms we wont find way to solve issues.

Has anybody done a report on the actual contract between JUSCO & the state & gathered performance parameters month on month? I think the task force should go into this & evaluate objectively. If it indeed points to the vendor not performing get another one & levy penalties. Let nobody take committments for granted, but we cant throw the baby out with the bath water.