A man now owns a 23.6 kilometre (km) stretch of a river. He has a monopoly on the supply of water from the Sheonath river in a 19 km radius near the Durg township in Chhattisgarh.

This has been made possible by a boot (build-own-operate-transfer) agreement that he has entered intowith the state government, by virtue of which a portion of the river has been ceded to him through a 22-year renewable concession.

Through that one document, the traditional access of thousands of villagers to river waters