public facilities

Water as Part of the Fundamental Right to Life

The Constitution of India recognises the right to water as being a part of the Right to Life under Article 21. This means that it is the right of every person, whether rich or poor, to have sufficient amounts of water to fulfil his/her daily needs at a price that he/she can afford. In other words, there should be universal access to water

India has one of the largest number of cases of diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera. Over 1,600 Indians, most of them children below the age of five, reportedly die everyday because of water-related diseases.

right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use” United Nations (2002)

in 2007, the Andhra Pradesh High Court restated this while hearing a case based on a letter written by a villager of Mahbubnagar district on the contamination of drinking water. The villager’s complaint was that a textile company was discharging poisonous chemicals into a stream near his village, contaminating ground water, which was the source for irrigation and drinking water. The judges directed the Mahbubnagar district collector to supply 25 litres of water to each person in the village.

The important characteristic of a public facility is that once it is provided, its benefits can be shared by many people. For instance, a school in the village will enable many children to get educated. Similarly, the supply of electricity to an area can be useful for many people: farmers can run pumpsets to irrigate their fields, people can open small workshops that run on electricity, students will find it easier to study and most people in the village will benefit in some way or the other.

The Government’s Role

One of the most important functions of the government is to ensure that these public facilities are made available to everyone

But, for other public facilities such as schools and hospitals, private companies may well be interested.

if we are living in a city, you will have seen private companies supplying water through tankers or supplying drinking water in sealed bottles. In such cases, private companies provide public facilities but at a price that only some people can afford. Hence, this facility is not available to all at an affordable rate.

Public facilities relate to people’s basic needs. Any modern society requires that these facilities are provided so that people’s basic needs are met. The Right to Life that the Constitution guarantees is for all persons living in this country. The responsibility to provide public facilities, therefore, must be that of the government.

Where does the government get money for public facilities?

The main source of revenue for the government is the taxes collected from the people, and the government is empowered to collect these taxes and use them for such programmes. For instance, to supply water, the government has to incur costs in pumping water, carrying it over long distances, laying down pipes for distribution, treating the water for impurities, and finally, collecting and treating waste water.

Q 1. What are public facilities? Why should the government be responsible for providing public facilities?