Achieving Continuous Water Supply in Towns and Cities of Urban India: Recent experiences, lessons and way forward

Achieving Continuous Water Supply in Towns and Cities of Urban India: Recent experiences, lessons and way forward
Srinivas Chary Vedala Professor & Director Centre for Energy, Environment, Urban Governance and Infrastructure DevelopmentAdministrative Staff College of India
Serving the urban population in India with clean water and sanitation services remains a vital public health task. Moreover, it forms a critical component in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Presently, the Water and sanitation service levels in Indian towns and cities are quite low and financially unsustainable, especially for urban poor. With few exceptions, users of piped water distribution systems in Indian cities receive an intermittent water supply. Discontinuous supply is practiced even though many cities have sufficient water resources to provide a continuously pressurized system, operated 24 hrs a day.

Twenty-four hour water supply seven days a week is an accepted global practice and is prevalent not only in the cities of developed countries but also in many cities in less developed countries. It is significant that along with Europe, people of African and Asian cities like Kampala (Uganda), Singapore, Malaysia, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and Dhulikel (Nepal) also have ready access to clean, potable water available 24 hours/day and with less expense than currently available in most of the Indian cities.

A continuous and high quality water supply system has a number of benefits. It achieves, inter alia, significantly better health outcomes (by reducing contamination of piped water), permits better system and demand management (through effective metering and active leakage management), and can generate greater consumer satisfaction and a willingness to pay for improved services.

This paper presents recent attempts made by cities and towns in transforming an intermittent water supply to continuous water supply in India. Experiences of Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Nagpur, Kundapura and Latur towns in achieving 24-7 water supply is reviewed and key lessons emerging from these initiatives are highlighted. The paper presents context in each of these cities, pre project situation, trigger for reforms, change management practices followed in respective cities, capacity building interventions, impact and outcome of reforms, learnings for other cities and potential for replication for cities in India and elsewhere.