Who decides how much water you get? Behind the numbers that shape urban India's water supply

Imagine living in a city where you're unsure whether water will flow from your tap tomorrow or how much you'll get. For millions across India, this isn’t a rare crisis; it’s daily reality. Behind this uncertainty lies a quiet but powerful force: the standards and numbers that decide how much water you’re entitled to. These figures are tucked away in engineering manuals, policy documents, and planning spreadsheets. But who defines them? Are they based on actual human needs—or just what the system can afford?

Sachin Tiwale's study, ‘What standards do and whom they serve: Fixing, practising and delivering per capita water supply standards in cities in India’ published in Nature and Space, dives deep into this question. He uncovers the politics and power dynamics behind something as seemingly neutral as the "per capita water supply standard."

For this, the author conducts an analysis of documents prescribing per capita standards over the years along with semi-structured interviews of experts including senior water supply engineers working with various water supply and sewerage boards and municipal corporations across India, senior officials of Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organization (CPHEEO), the president of the Indian Water Works Association (IWWA), former secretary of independent water regulatory authority, senior consultants, activists and academicians.

The power behind a number

Urban India’s water supply is planned and executed based on a per capita standard, which is a number that tells engineers and planners how many litres of water each person should get every day. These numbers are used to estimate how much water a city needs, design water infrastructure, and plan future investments. But they aren't set in stone, nor are they free from bias.

Tiwale's research reveals that these standards aren’t created with citizen needs at the centre. Instead, they reflect the conflicting goals and priorities of the different authorities who design them while keeping differing objectives in mind—often to control costs or satisfy funding requirements.

What is the per capita standard of water supply

The per capita water supply standard set by the state determines how much water each person is entitled to daily, to meet their domestic water needs. It is used to check if people are getting enough water and to plan how much water a city needs from nearby sources. This standard is also important for designing water supply systems that are  managed by municipal corporations. It helps estimate the cost of building and running these systems, including future investments for treatment, pumping, and upkeep.

How are per capita standards of water supply fixed, practised and delivered in cities in India?

The analysis reveals that

•  Per capita standards are set based on differing objectives

• There is an inconsistency in definitions and numbers prescribed as standards

• There is poor coordination among standard prescribing authorities, and a number of concerns arise due to lack of evidence and transparency in the standard-setting process

Who sets the standards?

After the 74th constitutional amendment in 1992, the responsibility of water supply was devolved from the state governments to urban local bodies. But while state governments and urban local bodies play important roles, the central government influences urban water supply in India by deciding technical standards and norms, shaping the policy framework while serving as the main funding agency.

Thus urban water supply schemes financed by the central government such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), and Smart Cities Mission are only approved when they adhere to the CPHEEO manual prescribing standards, guidelines and technical procedures, including per capita standards of water supply.

Differing objectives while setting per capita standards give rise to problems

Differing values of per capita standards of water supply are prescribed by authorities keeping differing objectives in mind such as providing a critical figure for designing water supply infrastructure, estimating investments required for developing water supply infrastructure and assessing the performance of water supply services. This gives rise to inconsistencies in implementation.

There are inconsistencies in how standards are defined and implemented

Multiple agencies use different definitions while prescribing per capita standards. The variations in definitions are based on inclusion or exclusion of non-domestic water use and losses, changes in criteria in terms of population and availability of the sewerage system, and the way numbers are expressed by the experts—precise value, range, or only upper or lower limits of per capita standard. As a result, the prescribed per capita standards are not comparable. 

Standard prescribing authorities themselves are not consistent, and as a result, standards keep changing over short periods. For example, from 1976 to 1999, a number of authorities, such as the BIS, NIUA, CPEEHO etc were found to have prescribed eight different values of per capita standards following different definitions and formats.

Poor coordination and alignment among the standard prescribing authorities increases confusion

At the national level, the per capita standards are prescribed by multiple agencies. Earlier, the Ministry of Works and Housing and, later, CPHEEO prescribed the standards for water infrastructure across the city till the service connection. Beyond service connection, the plumbing of residential and commercial buildings is designed with BIS namely IS 2065:1983 and IS 1172:1993 standards.

The CPHEEO is expected to work in collaboration with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) while preparing norms, standards and specifications for urban water supply in India. However, these two agencies function independently and prescribe differing standards.

Lack of evidence and transparency in standard prescription hinders progress

None of the standard prescribing authorities mention the rationale for revising the earlier standards while prescribing the new ones. Except for the Zakaria committee, authorities just quote the figures of per capita standards without providing any evidence. The authorities do not even provide the sources from where the numbers are fetched.

Per capita standards are used to control the capital costs of water supply schemes

The CPHEEO standards are widely followed by engineers but are mainly used to control the capital cost of the water supply schemes as they are linked to the availability of funds with the central governments, rather than the actual water requirements of the citizens, which are never measured.

Per capita standards set by the CPHEEO are taken for granted by engineers

The CPHEEO manual is often regarded as the final word by the water supply engineering fraternity in India. As a result, the standards and technical procedures provided in the manual are followed unquestionably. Thus, the per capita standards prescribed by the project financing agency are taken for granted by engineers, and the plan or design of the scheme is mainly driven by cost considerations and not the actual water requirement of citizens.

The per capita standard remains unmeasurable, controlled by authorities and out of reach of citizens, making it a fictitious number

Although engineers use CPHEEO's per capita water standards when planning, these standards are often not followed in real life across Indian cities. Plus, since most cities do not have water meters, it is hard to know if people are actually getting the right amount of water.

Sometimes, parts of the water supply system—like dams, treatment plants, or storage tanks—are built at different times, with different budgets, and based on different water standards. Because of this, water delivery in cities can become disorganised and inconsistent.

Since engineers aren’t held responsible for making sure people get the set amount of water each day, standard procedures and norms are often adjusted to cut costs or change how water flows. This leads to water not being delivered as planned. On top of that, old and poorly maintained pipes and systems make the gap even wider between how much water is supposed to be supplied and how much people actually receive in different cities.