ABSTRACT
Most cities in India are facing a form of water crisis, be it related to water resource scarcity or water access. Problems and concerns pertain to quantity and quality, equity across different sections of the population, poor sanitation, ineffective and obsolete wastewater management practices and lack of long-term vision, planning and motivation. Poor regulation and overuse of resources, and the development of large hydraulic projects feeding into obsolete and inefficient distribution systems, within a supplydriven approach, contribute to the actual water crisis (in some cases) and the perceived one (in other cases). The ongoing process of urban population growth, which predates the network extension, also critically weighs upon the access issue with the inability of operators (municipalities or state public agencies) to cope with the demographic and spatial growth of cities. Even though the urban transition in India is limited when compared with other countries (around 30% of the population is officially urban), the added yearly urban population is significant in absolute numbers. Levels of service vary from state to state and according to the size of cities. The level of access to piped water and sanitation in secondary cities and small towns is much below that of large cities (World Bank, 2006). The reinforced top-heavy urban hierarchy also aggravates inequities in service delivery. In terms of water service, this leads to problems such as reliance on untreated groundwater, the critical role of which in the process of urban development is given very little attention (Janakarajan, 2004a); the large range of compensatory strategies of users to ensure a minimum level of services (Zérah, 2000; Llorente and Zérah, 2002); and the withering of the current model of governance.
