Though, the new draft of National Water Policy has favoured privatisation of water-delivery services and tariff hike, members of a working panel of the Planning Commission are strongly divided over the crucial issue. But strangely, for reasons best known to the Commission, the views of the members who have opposed the privatisation of water, were not initially incorporated in the report prepared by the committee on Urban and Industrial Water Supply and Sanitation for 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17) led by activist Sunita Narain. In fact, suggestions of Shripad Dharmadhikary of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra and Himanshu Thakkar, an expert at the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), were included “as additional comments” in the report in the last minute only after the two raised serious objections against exclusion of their views. Even as many members, including Narain in the panel suggested the private sector role must be recognised and indeed encouraged, the experts duo made it clear that no privatisation should be allowed in the drinking and municipal water supply systems. “No privatisation and PPP (should be allowed) till (a) adequate constitutional and legal safeguards are in place and (b) till a more rigorous independent analysis of the pilot projects already being implemented is carried out,” said Dharmadhikary and Thakkar in the report. They also suggested to keep drinking water supply out of the ambit of public-private partnership (PPP) projects noting that drinking and domestic water is a basic human necessity, therefore, it remains in public hands. Also “privatisation changes the nature of water supply from that of a social responsibility to that of a commodity supply.” However, in what could raise serious doubts on the panel’s objective, the two activists also alleged that the report had missed out on highlighting the many serious problems of privatisation and PPPs. “As a result, its recommendations are weak.” Thakkar also took a dig at the panel’s failure to include all comments. “However, we also believe that even if some members of the Group may not endorse the stand of ‘no privatisation’, there was in general a fair amount of skepticism regarding privatisation and many serious questions that were expressed in the Group. The report does not reflect this.” The findings of the planning panel are likely to be considered by the Government while finalising the National Water Policy, the draft of which is on the Ministry’s website seeking public comments. It is feared that the proposals would lead to higher tariff.