In cities, towns, and even in many villages, a new phenomenon (not more than ten or fifteen years old), is being observed i.e. the sale of water in packed sealed plastic bottles. This phenomenon exemplifies which of the following process?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Commodification
Option (1) Globalization — Incorrect. Globalisation is the stretching of social and economic relationships throughout the world. Bottled water is sold by many local and national companies; the question is about water turning into something sold, not about links across countries.
Option (2) Marketization — Incorrect. Marketisation is the use of markets or market-based processes, rather than government regulations, to solve social, political or economic problems – deregulation, privatisation and removing controls on wages and prices. It is a policy approach, not the turning of drinking water into a product.
Option (3) Consumption — Incorrect. Consumption is the buying and using of goods and services. Buying bottled water is an act of consumption, but the question asks for the process by which water became something to buy in the first place.
Option (4) Commodification — Correct. Commodification is the process by which something which was not a commodity is made into a commodity and becomes part of the market economy. In the grandparents’ generation it was unthinkable that anyone could sell drinking water; today bottled water is taken for granted as a normal thing to buy.
NCERT: Indian Society — Chapter 4: The Market as a Social Institution (2025-26)
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