Metering and Pricing

The informal water market plays a crucial role in meeting the drinking and domestic water security of peri-urban communities. The increasing reliance on private informal water vendors in all our study villages speaks of their significance.

This story is of Punawli Kalan village in Uttar Pradesh, where a community with the support of a women-led federation, solved its water woes by developing a community-owned water supply system.

In November 2011, the government of Madhya Pradesh sanctioned Rs 493 crore to 37 Urban Local Bodies (ULB) for drinking water supply projects under the Chief Minister’s Urban Drinking Water Supply Scheme (CMUWSS) along the lines of the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT).

Despite all the hype around Swachh Bharat Mission, the situation on the ground remains dismal. The city of Ujjain is located on the western part of Madhya Pradesh on the Malwa Plateau and is primarily a religious tourism centre due to the Mahakal temple.

If you are a resident of Delhi, it wouldn’t matter if you have a residence proof or not; neither would it matter if your settlement is illegal. You will get individual water connection that will supply enough water for your daily use.

Water is more useful in terms of survival than diamonds. So why then does the latter, which is mostly for ornamental purposes, command a higher price in the market? This contradiction is termed the diamond-water paradox or the paradox of value.

In January 2016, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) Employees Union and residents of Nagpur yet again protested the privatisation of water services in the city.

Haryana's agriculture sector uses seven lakh tubewells, most of which are connected to the grid as the state has a policy of providing highly subsidised electricity to farmers costing Rs. 6200 crore a year. As a result, groundwater exploitation is rampant.

Delhi, home to 16.75 million people, is in the grip of a major water crisis. Statistics by the Delhi Jal Board for the year 2011 suggest that the water deficit stands at about 250 million gallons per day with the supply being 830 million gallons per day.

There was a recent report in the Times of India on how Singapore, listed among the 20 smallest countries in the world, made water management and conservation efforts over the years. What lessons can India, a mammoth country draw from this small but densely populated country?