Tracking Scale-Up of Continuous Water Services in Hubli-Dharwad, Karnataka: Discussion on Sustenance Issues

Abstract

Municipal water utilities across the state provide intermittent water services (IWS), with frequencies ranging from daily to weekly deliveries. To expand supplies, increase coverage and improve services, municipal bodies are looking for alternative ways to fund drinking water services. Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) are one of the means being explored by many municipal bodies to attract private investment in the water sector. In 2008, under a loan from the World Bank, as part of a scheme administered by the state of Karnataka, Hubli-Dharwad upgraded eight wards as a demonstration project (demo wards) to continuous water services (CWS). Hubli-Dharwad upgraded an additional 18 wards to CWS in 2015 (extension wards) and has plans to scale up CWS to all remaining wards shortly. In this background, we tried to understand the ongoing affordability issues and water scarcity challenges in the scale-up of CWS as compared to demo zones of CWS and to discourse on sustenance issues regarding the management and provision of urban water supply, including planning, the role of the public and private sector, involvement of stakeholders, availability of water, their sources, networking, financing, and maintenance, in India. Out of 67 wards, we selected 28 and collected information from 840 households.