The paper analyzes the growing challenges within developing countries, such as urbanization, and consequent solutions emerging due to globalization. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been mooted to push forward the reforms in several sectors. Where the response has been lukewarm, strategic communication has been employed. Examining the contribution of PPPs to service delivery, public policy and public debate in the urban water and sewerage sector involves an irony. The PPPs have demonstrated strong public demand for better services, but they have been resisted widely, leading the policymakers to back down on their initial enthusiasm and make way for increased government funding. This paper argues the wider themes of freedom and justice have to be critically invoked within the context of globalization to understand the choices before policymakers. This calls for the emphasis to shift from the project-based strategic communication to a wider deliberation on reforms.

A broader meaning of development lies in improving ‘life chances’ or the ‘real freedoms’ of an individual and a community (Sen, 2000, p. 506; and Giddens, 2007, p. 100). Among the various constituent factors that influence life chances are economic opportunities, social justice, political freedoms, public health, transparency, security and chances of enhancing educational qualifications (Sen, 1999 and 2000).

Public policy,1 social resistance movements, political and civil society actions, technical innovations and ‘best’ management practices can contribute to expanding real freedoms. Public policy orientation towards improving civic amenities plays an important role in good governance. Effective public policy is alert to the needs and aspirations of better quality of life. Research in public policy needs to establish “the empirical linkages that make the viewpoint of freedom coherent and cogent as the guiding perspectives of the process of development” (Sen, 1999, p. xii).

Deliberating Reforms, Public-Private Partnerships, Indian Water and Sewerage Sector