Economic valuation of restoring wastewater management services: evidence from India
Student name: Mr Promit Mookherjee
Guide: Dr Kavita Sardana
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: Across the world there has been a redistribution of people from rural areas to urban areas. As a result, various sustainable traditional occupations are facing labour shortages and are at risk of collapse. This paper examines this problem for the East Kolkata Wetlands: a conglomeration of sewage fed fisheries which provide wastewater treatment services to the city through a symbiotic relationship between traditional labour and ecological processes. These traditional practices could soon face labour shortages because local workers are shifting to more remunerative modern jobs. Our objective is to quantify the opportunity costs associated with traditional fishery jobs and compare them to the non-market benefits accruing to the residents of the city from the waste management services. In order to incorporate local worker’s preferences, a contingent valuation study based on primary survey was carried out. The survey estimated respondent’s willingness to accept compensation to participate in a program that aims to keep them employed in fishery jobs. A high positive net present value shows that the opportunity costs are very less compared to the benefits. This coupled with the fact that a large part of our sample was willing to commit to fishery jobs suggests that any future policy that aims to incentivize local workers to provide labour to traditional jobs could provide significant economic gains to society.
Keywords: Ecosystem Services; Urban Rural Shift; Opportunity Costs; Contingent Valuation; Cost-Benefit Analysis.
