Metering and Pricing

While India has experienced dynamic growth over the past few years, enormous challenges remain in the water supply and sanitation sector. As a part of the Nation’s vision various national initiatives are currently underway to improve the levels of cleanliness through solid and liquid waste management activities and providing every person in rural and urban India with adequate safe water for drinking, cooking and other domestic basic needs on a sustainable basis.

A recent BBC report projected that Bengaluru will run out of water soon.

Yes, it was a superficial list of cities that already have water problem. It just pronounced the harsh verdict without any in-depth analysis of the factors involved. That’s like taking a casual look at an emaciated man and saying, “he is going to die soon”.

Faecal coliform contamination found to be significantly higher in rivers around holy sites

The problem of Bengaluru’s water is well known. The demand for water tankers skyrockets during the summer months, when municipal and borewell water supplies run dry, and many of the city’s lakes, actually man-made tanks, lie neglected and polluted.

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. Informal players like private RO companies, households or individual farmers selling water, however, do not operate in isolation, but in agreement with the formal players.

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.