ALL the water you see here is our private property. In hard cash, water in a 23.5-sq km areas is worth Rs 4 crore. I can hold on to it, sell it or allow it to flow down. Buyers are ready to pay me the price for assured bulk supply to industry,’’ says Kailash Soni, as he races his motor boat on the Sheonath river.

If you’ve always believed rivers are a national asset, Kailash Soni can come as a shock. But the fact is that the young entrepreneur from Rajnandgaon owns the country’s first private water supply scheme on the Sheonath, a semi-perennial river near Durg town, on Build-Own-Operate-Transfer basis.

The scheme, commissioned 18 months ago, is a novel experiment in private sector initiative in an area so long monopolised by the government. This is the way it works: The Rasmada scheme supplies water to the Chhattisgarh State Industries Development Corporation, which has bulk buyers in distilleries, sponge iron units and thermal power plants (for instance, the Bhilwara group’s Hindustan Electro-Graphite Industries or HEG). Currently, the Rasmada scheme can supply 30 million litres/day to the CSIDC. Soni charges Rs 6.60 per thousand litres of water, which, incidentally, is less than half the rates (between Rs 12 and Rs 18) charged by MP and Maharashtra.

The commissioning of the Rasmada scheme coincided with the creation of Chhattisgarh. Its success can lead to replication of efforts in other towns or industrial clusters. The first in this series could be Chhattisgarh’s new capital township, where most public services will be outsourced; besides, several state governments and public and private sector corporations have expressed interest in the project.

‘‘The concept is novel, so is the technology; both of these were developed in-house at my company, Radius Water,’’ says Soni. ‘‘The technology doesn’t require expensive electrically operated gate systems. We use a Flood Regulating Barrier System, which opens and closes automatically, depending on the level of the Sheonath. The barrage height is low, so there’s no question of submergence or displacement.’’

The success of the scheme is endorsed by HEG senior vice-president Ravi Pangaria. ‘‘CSIDC is meeting our demand fully following its deal with Radius Water,’’ he says. Quite a certificate, considering that HEG had sued CSIDC in its earlier avatar of MPAKVN in 1998 for failing to supply the promised quantum of water.

Such has been the impact of the project, says P Raghavan, principal secretary, industries, that the entire Borai area, where the Rasmada is located, has been declared a model growth centre for water-intensive industries.

Already, the Bangalore-based Khoday Group, with interests in distilleries and power, has approached Soni for water supply to their new project at Borai. ‘‘We are just waiting for some international financial tie-ups to mature. Then Radius Water, and its back-up Kailash Engineering Company, will change the face of the area,’’ promises Soni.

But the Rasmada scheme goes beyond simple demand-supply logistics. The promoters have offered to treat effluents at a common plant at a price, and then direct the treated water to farmers for irrigation free of cost.