Good Intentions, Bad Policy: RO Purifiers

One of the errors we tend to make is to evaluate policies by focussing on their intent rather than focussing on its consequences. Pranay Kotasthane gives a good example of why that is a bad idea in Missing in Action.

 

Take the ubiquitous RO water purifiers. They reduce the total dissolved solids (TDS) in water, and yes, it wastes a lot of water. Besides, the body does need minerals; so RO’s in areas where TDS is low to begin with are not such a good idea. Therefore, the government set a limit – no RO’s in areas where TDS is lesser than 500 mg/liter.

 

A terrible policy if you stop focussing on intent and instead look at consequences. First, the real problem is the poor quality of water for consumption. Should the government spend on trying to address that or on framing and then enforcing regulations? Second, did anyone check what fraction of fresh water is used by domestic consumption? It’s just 2%. Which raises the question – did it make sense to focus on the wastage involved in that 2%? How much is the benefit to be had from this 2%? Third, how does one identify which places have less than 500 mg/liter? One might argue that the government could measure it in different places. Sure, but that would still miss the bigger problem – if most cities get their water from water tankers, then shouldn’t households be tracked for violations of this 500 mg/liter limit based on the water they actually consume? But how would anyone even track that? What if the water tanker supplier is changed? What if the supplier starts getting the water from a different place? Fourth, even if one could somehow track all this, it raises a new question – now only some fraction (whatever that number) of households would be above the 500 mg/liter limit. How much water savings would be achieved by enforcing the limit? Did someone do the maths to check if it would be worth it at all?

 

Why do such policies come into existence? Focussing on intent rather than consequences, obviously, is one reason. Another one, as Shruti Rajagopalan wrote is just sad:

“The Indian elite initiates and supports policies that… may have little relevance to the Indian population as a whole and may be wildly at odds with Indian state capacity. This kind of mimicry of what appear to be the best Western policies and practices is not necessarily ill-intentioned.”