Kumar, Sunil
(2013)
Water bound.
UNSPECIFIED, GBR.
(Submitted)
Abstract
Squatter households in Mumbai line up jerry cans in preparation of water to be supplied by the local municipality in the early hours of the morning. The chain linking the cans is to prevent them from being stolen. Not all the urban poor receive municipal supplies of water but depend on informal water vendors. The urban poors expenditure on water (per cubic metre) from water vendors is very high compared to those with piped water connections: 7 times as much in Mumbai and Phnom Penh, and 15 times in as much in Karachi and Kathmandu. Often, illegality and haphazard settlement patterns are cited as reasons why governments are unable to provided piped water. The question is: how can government and non-government actors work with informal water vendors to cut out the role of intermediaries and thus reduce costs whilst not depriving water vendors of this source of their livelihood?
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