Water Disparities in Smaller Cities: From Source to Structure

As the summer intensifies, India’s smaller cities grapple with the escalating water crisis. Across India’s smaller cities, turning on a tap is no longer a mundane routine. It is a moment of uncertainty. In some neighbourhoods, water flows regularly, even abundantly. In others, residents wait three to five days, adjust to midnight supply slots, or rely entirely on borewells and tankers. As India urbanises, ensuring equitable access to water is as much about justice as it is about engineering. Without addressing these disparities, the promise of urban development remains hollow.

In response to these fragmented experiences across cities, various national-level interventions have attempted to bring about uniform improvements in urban water access. The Government of India launched AMRUT 2.0 on October 1, 2021, expanding its reach from 500 large cities to all 4,372 statutory towns across the country. The mission aims to make cities “self-reliant” and “water secure,” with a target of providing 26.8 million new household tap connections. While ambitious in scope, such large scale missions often encounter deeply embedded, local challenges that hinder equitable outcomes on the ground.

The variation in water access across neighbourhoods, particularly in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, is not caused by scarcity alone. Instead, it reflects how infrastructure is laid, maintained, and governed. Delayed projects, pump malfunctions, over-dependence on specific sources, and leaking pipelines are all common issues. A NITI Aayog report warned that by 2030, 40% of India’s population may have no access to drinking water. Currently the average supply per person stands at just 69.25 litres/day, far below the norm of 135 litres per day as recommended by Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO)’s Manual on Water Supply & Treatment. This gap highlights significant infrastructure and governance challenges in India's water supply systems, particularly in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

On the ground, this crisis plays out in varied and often unequal ways. In Gurgaon, for instance, 2024 saw tail-end neighborhoods receiving water only once every few days, while other areas enjoyed daily supply. Officials acknowledged a 100 million litre daily (MLD) shortfall that disproportionately impacted peripheral wards.

A similar pattern has played out in Parasia, Chhindwara district. Water supply varies between three to seven days. Wards 1-6, depending on the Newton anicut, get water once every five to seven days. Wards 17-21 receive supply from the Chaurai filtration plant every five days. Other wards rely on borewells at Khirsadoh, where only 13 of 16 borewells are functional. Of 34 handpumps, only 16 work, most yielding little water. Poor management, drying sources, and aging infrastructure have deepened the crisis.

In Sirsa, Haryana, water distribution depended on 120 borewells and a partially completed surface water project that was originally scheduled for July 2024. As of April 2025, the project remained incomplete, forcing the municipality to install 14 additional borewells just to stabilize daily demand. 

These cases are very common but stay in the background of the headlines which highlight that “x” number of cities will run dry in 5-10 or 15 years. Yet, it is in these daily struggles; in missed timings, broken pipes, and patchy governance, that the real water crisis of India’s cities is playing out.

When Water Projects Stall, People Suffer

Often, the reason for uneven water service within a city lies in delayed, partially implemented, or entirely stalled infrastructure projects. While plans may exist on paper, the reality on the ground is starkly different, especially in rapidly expanding or newly added areas. Water may flow through pipelines, but without proper fittings or handover, it fails to reach the households it was meant for. In Nepanagar, Madhya Pradesh, a ₹34.35 crore project managed to serve only 11 out of 24 wards. In some places, water flowed wastefully from open pipes where taps were never installed. Decades-old tank-and-pipeline systems remain dry, never commissioned, leaving residents staring at non-functional infrastructure.

Frustrations of a similar kind surfaced in Narendranagar, a hill town in Uttarakhand located barely 15 kilometers from the Chandrabhaga and Ganga rivers. In April 2025, hundreds of residents began a hunger strike, demanding drinking water under the Centre’s Har Ghar Jal scheme. Despite ₹33 crore already spent, protestors claimed no household had received regular drinking water. Officials had previously promised that supply would be streamlined by March 12, but the deadline came and went. Residents noted that instead of a functional water tank, only a pit had been dug. Their demands were repeatedly met with "false assurances." That a water-stressed town exists so close to two perennial rivers reveals a deeper governance failure, a stark gap between resource availability and actual provision.

Under AMRUT 2.0, states and union territories were required to complete and get approval for their State Water Action Plans (SWAPs) within two years of the mission’s launch. ₹63,976.77 crore in central assistance has been approved so far, from a total allocation of ₹66,750 crore. However, several states and UTs, including Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttarakhand, have not secured approval for 90% of their allocated assistance. Delays in planning and approvals cascade into delays in execution, keeping critical infrastructure in limbo and leaving millions dependent on inefficient and irregular water supply arrangements. Projects intended to improve water distribution, storage, and treatment remain stalled or non-starters and existing infrastructure deteriorates further, exacerbating already prevalent inefficiencies such as leakages, pump failures, and uneven pressure distribution.

Pipes, Pumps, and the Problem of Ageing Systems

Legacy systems are another critical point of failure, especially during peak summer months when demand surges. Old pumps, undersized motors, and deteriorating chambers often restrict flow, leaving distant localities underserved. In Sirsa, the main water facility at Chhatargarh Patti continues to rely on outdated 15 HP motors, despite current needs demanding double the capacity. Without timely upgrades, the infrastructure struggles to meet even the basic daily supply targets, more so during canal maintenance periods when storage tanks are already running low.

Similar challenges are even more visible in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, where nearly 1.8 million residents depend primarily on two aging pipelines, one over 50 years old (700 mm) and the other 33 years old (1200 mm), that still carry 90% of the city's water supply. An emergency 900 mm pipeline laid in 2024 was expected to ease the pressure, but it has already burst five times in the last three months and twelve times in one year, exposing the limitations of rushed or poorly executed interventions. Despite a ₹2,740 crore water supply augmentation scheme underway, systemic issues persist, leaving residents to receive drinking water only once every 12 days. A deeply concerning fact in one of Maharashtra’s most water-stressed urban zones, marked by the highest density of water tankers and surrounded by the largest number of water-scarce villages in the state.

In contrast, cities like Panaji have shown the potential of using smart technologies to manage aging systems better. Under a pilot project with IoT-based smart meters, non-revenue water was reduced from 38% to 15% by enabling real-time leak detection, monitoring pressure drops, and improving user consumption patterns. The pilot’s success suggests that technology-driven water management could offer part of the solution for cities grappling with old infrastructure, but only if backed by sustained investment and systemic upgrades, not just temporary fixes.

Source Dependency and Disruption

Dependence on a single water source, such as a canal, reservoir, or filtration plant, can quickly escalate minor disruptions into citywide crises. When these primary sources undergo maintenance or experience technical issues, the effects ripple across multiple wards. In Paradip, for instance, the closure of the main canal for routine summer renovation disrupted the supply to the two reservoirs, severely limiting the city’s ability to maintain regular supply. This pattern is not unique to Paradip; many cities face similar issues, compounded by pipeline leaks and malfunctioning motors at filtration plants. Bhopal, for example, the shifting of a major Narmada pipeline due to construction disrupted supply in over 40 localities, affecting more than five lakh residents and revealing the fragility of depending on a single supply line.

Water pipelines, especially those in older networks, are prone to leaks, cracks, and pressure faults, leading to frequent interruptions and further deepening disparities when certain areas must be temporarily cut off during repairs. In Perundurai (Erode district), Tamil Nadu, residents have repeatedly petitioned local authorities to restore consistent drinking water access. Persistent shortages have forced people to rely on external tankers or face days without clean water. In Hosur, a suspected case of contamination left residents sick, pointing to potential failures in filtration systems or supply pipes.

This vulnerability is also quite pronounced in India’s hill towns, where spring-fed systems are rapidly depleting. In Mussoorie, the Jinsy and Bhilaru springs have seen a 20% decline in discharge since 2008, reducing output from 450 litres per minute to just 365 litres in 2017. As a result, water tankers have become the town’s primary means of supply. In Devprayag, the situation is even worse, with spring discharge dropping by over 50% in just three years. In Dwarahat, a town in Almora district, water supply was completely disrupted for four days after the transformer for the Ramganga Pumping Scheme, which serves the town and over a dozen nearby villages, failed. The entire area depends on this single pumping source for drinking water. The outage forced women to fetch water directly from the natural springs, severely affecting their daily routines. The disruption led to public protests, with women blocking the highway to demand immediate restoration.

Kalimpong in West Bengal, a popular tourist destination, also faces chronic water shortages. With each hotel and homestay requiring 10,000 to 12,000 litres per day, the regular municipal supply fails to meet the demand, further fueling the town’s reliance on water tankers. Here, access to water is largely determined by purchasing power, effectively turning the right to water into a commodity.

Shortage of Staff, Overflow of Problems

While physical systems and natural sources struggle under pressure, the human systems that operate and monitor them face their own constraints. Timely execution of projects often hinges on consistent leadership and administrative continuity. Changes in officials, contracting agencies or lack of coordination between implementing agencies and local governments can stall progress, even when infrastructure is physically complete. Delays in project handover from contractors to the municipal council can also mean that installed systems remain unused. In other cases, when key officials such as executive engineers overseeing a major water augmentation project are transferred, the water supply projects are disrupted as it takes time before new officials take over.

City water systems also depend heavily on human oversight; field engineers, pump operators, and tanker managers who ensure that water reaches each neighborhood. When departments are understaffed or staff are overburdened, supply becomes erratic. In Jammu, a strike by over 1,200 Jal Shakti workers revealed how one worker was managing as many as three to four pump stations, with obvious consequences for service quality. In Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu, only three operators were found managing canals that supply water to over 160 irrigation tanks, leading to inequitable distribution, increased risks of water theft, and widespread service gaps, particularly in tail-end areas.

Although India's Service Level Benchmarking (SLB) framework tracks several operational parameters, it does not prescribe staffing norms relative to population or system complexity. Sector studies provide useful references: a World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) review of urban water utilities suggests that efficient systems typically require about 5-6 operational staff per 1,000 water connections, while a CEPT University study recommends 2-4 staff per 1,000 connections for medium-sized towns. In contrast, many smaller Indian cities operate with far fewer personnel, often relying on a single operator to manage multiple pumping stations or zones, as seen in Jammu and Erode. This staffing shortfall, though widespread, remains an under-recognised barrier to achieving consistent, equitable, and sustainable water service delivery across urban India.

In Bhopal, after investing over ₹455 crore in revamping the water supply infrastructure, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) is increasingly outsourcing operations due to a lack of new recruitments. With an estimated 2% to 5% of in-service personnel retiring annually and no new hires, the reliance on private entities for operation and maintenance has grown, raising concerns about accountability and service quality.

Service Level Benchmarks: Measuring Performance or Missing the Point?

Without proper systems in place to measure and correct these disparities, efforts to improve water supply risk becoming superficial. This is where the role of performance benchmarks becomes critical, but also contested. Until the late 2000s, India’s approach to urban water management was heavily focused on infrastructure creation, laying pipelines, building tanks, and installing pumps. However, this infrastructure-driven model often failed to answer a more fundamental question: was water actually reaching people, reliably and equitably? Despite large public investments, many cities and towns continued to face inconsistent, inadequate, and inequitable water supply. The absence of measurable service outcomes made it difficult to assess how well urban utilities were functioning, or where course corrections were needed.

It was in this context that the Service Level Benchmarking (SLB) framework was introduced in 2008 by the Ministry of Urban Development (now Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs- MoHUA). The aim was to move beyond physical infrastructure and focus on monitoring service delivery. SLBs were designed as a standardised set of performance indicators to help urban local bodies (city governments) measure, report, and improve how water, and later other services, were being delivered.

For the urban water supply sector, the SLB framework introduced key metrics including coverage of connections, per capita water supply, extent of metering, non-revenue water, continuity and quality of supply, grievance redressal, cost recovery, and billing efficiency. These indicators were meant to promote regular monitoring, performance improvements, and a shared understanding among governments, service providers, and citizens of what constitutes “good” water service.

Over the years, SLBs have been integrated into major reform programs like AMRUT, Smart Cities, and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), making them a cornerstone of India’s urban governance toolkit. Under AMRUT, city governments are mandated to report service levels against SLB indicators annually through the online portal, linking fund disbursement to improvements in performance. In the Smart Cities Mission, cities were encouraged to set targets aligned with SLB parameters as part of their Area-Based Development plans. Similarly, Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) adapted SLB principles for sanitation benchmarking, where service-level improvements were tracked and verified. This integration formalised SLB metrics as essential criteria not just for internal monitoring, but for performance-based funding and national rankings across urban missions. However, the framework has also revealed several structural limitations, especially in its application to small and mid-sized cities.

The most significant issue is its uniformity: the same benchmarks are applied across metros and small towns alike, with no adjustment for capacity differences. Cities with limited staff, aging infrastructure, and complex terrain are judged by the same yardstick as well-resourced metros. This one-size-fits-all approach masks critical local realities and makes true performance assessment difficult.

For instance, the SLB framework does not account for the age or condition of pipelines and pumping systems, despite their obvious influence on water continuity and quality. Nor does it consider whether a city government has sufficient trained personnel to manage its systems, something particularly important in smaller towns where, in many cases, one operator may be responsible for managing multiple pump stations. These institutional and technical gaps are not captured, even though they directly affect outcomes.

Source diversification is also a major concern; out of the 9 indicators, none addresses the source from which the water is supplied, nor does it suggest which sources should be prioritised over others. A more balanced approach is needed, integrating renewable and sustainable water sources, such as rainwater harvesting and surface water, alongside careful management of groundwater. Furthermore, an inclusive policy framework should prioritise both equitable access to these sources and their long-term sustainability, considering regional variations in water availability.

While citizen feedback was intended to be incorporated through AMRUT’s Peyjal Survekshan to assess service level benchmarks, it currently focuses only on evaluating existing services. There is no mechanism in place to gather public input on planned or upcoming projects, missing an opportunity for truly participatory planning. Additionally, the SLB process continues to rely on self-reported data by city governments. On the other hand, the Composite Water Management Index, developed by NITI Aayog, the Ministry of Jal Shakti, and the Ministry of Rural Development, under its indicator 'Urban Water Supply and Sanitation,' only considers the percentage of people provided with drinking water and the wastewater generated, along with the system's capacity to treat this wastewater, limiting its scope for comprehensive water management assessment. 

The implementation of guidelines, such as those in the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) operation and maintenance manual and SLBs, has been ineffective in cities like Bhopal and Indore, as evidenced by audit reports. In these cities, operation and maintenance plans were not prepared, and no supervisory staff were assigned to oversee critical activities. As a result, issues such as high non-revenue water (49% in Bhopal and 65% in Indore), and poor water quality management went unaddressed. SLB targets were not reviewed periodically, and inflated performance reports were published without verifying actual achievements. The lack of a leakage detection cell, regular maintenance, and adequate staffing exacerbated water distribution problems, leading to significant water losses and unreliable service. Furthermore, poor water quality, including untested borewell water and unclean overhead tanks, violated prescribed standards. 

To make the SLB framework more meaningful, especially for smaller cities, it is essential to develop tiered and context-specific performance indicators. These should reflect the realities of outdated infrastructure, high leakage rates, workforce shortages, and source vulnerabilities. Benchmarking must evolve from being a formal, checkbox exercise to an actionable system that reflects not just what cities report, but what citizens experience. While the focus is currently on connecting every household to piped water, the real challenge lies in how to operate and maintain these systems effectively. Without addressing these operational and management issues, improvements in water supply will remain superficial.

Closing the Gap Between Infrastructure and Disparity 

As is evident, disparities in urban water supply are not driven by scarcity alone (India does have sufficient water resources, as the Central Water Commission notes), but by poor management, uneven infrastructure, governance failures, staffing shortages, and over-reliance on single sources and many such factors. Still bridging the gap between water infrastructure and water justice requires far more than just laying pipelines or installing pumps. It demands a deeper shift towards a system that recognises: The unequal distribution of needs across different area , impact of human factors, the complexities of delivery infrastructure, the hidden costs of stalled and delayed projects, the everyday realities of those left waiting at dry taps and incorporating these realities in decision making. 

In cities like Bhopal and Indore, high water leakage and poor zoning have led to unequal and inefficient water distribution. Zoning, meant to ensure equal supply across areas, was not properly planned and implemented. According to CPHEEO guidelines, each zone should receive balanced pressure and be isolated using closed valves, yet in practice, valves were often left partially open, disrupting pressure and causing supply imbalances. As per the new Manual on Water Supply and Treatment Systems (Drink From Tap), 2024, CPHEEO, MoHUA acknowledged that so far, the zones have been defined without adhering to recommended hydraulic principles or considering actual demand and pressure requirements. Moreover, key responsibilities like adjusting inflows into reservoirs and maintaining pressure in distribution lines were neglected. Operation and maintenance plans were either poorly executed or missing altogether. SLB targets were rarely reviewed, and performance reports were inflated without ground verification. As a result, many neighborhoods continue to face unreliable supply and poor water quality.

Earlier the manual lacked emphasis on Operational Zones (OZs) and District Metered Areas (DMAs). Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) implemented large, loosely planned networks that ignored these pressure standards. Consequently, most systems shifted to intermittent supply soon after commissioning, typically limited to 2–6 hours per day, leading to pipeline contamination, high Non-Revenue Water (NRW), and inequitable distribution. This has created major O&M and management challenges. A shift toward decentralised planning, through OZs, DMAs, increased residual pressure, and 100% metering, is essential to build a sustainable, equitable, and manageable urban water supply system, as outlined in the updated manual.

The situation in Udaipur starkly highlights the failure of infrastructure planning to align with the principles of water justice. Sewer lines have been laid over the city’s lakes, once the very sources of drinking water, polluting them and undermining the potential for clean, reliable water access.These lines remain in place, exacerbating the problem and further hindering water justice efforts. This echoes the issues in Bhopal and Indore, where poor zoning and valve mismanagement disrupt equitable water distribution. Both cases demonstrate how poor infrastructure decisions undermine the goal of equitable and sustainable water access. How can we hope to bridge the gap between water infrastructure and justice when such basic planning mistakes continue to damage the resources we rely on? Until these fundamental missteps are corrected, the promise of equitable water distribution remains distant at best.

Despite these pressing issues, many cities continue to chase the ideal of 24×7 water supply without addressing the decaying foundations of their water systems. Recent manuals outline how this goal can be achieved, noting that round-the-clock supply can reduce O&M costs in the long run. But to get there, we need more than intent, we need a serious policy shift. Decentralised operational zones require adequate trained manpower, assured source availability, and sustained funding. Meanwhile, old pipelines continue to leak, pumps malfunction, and pressure remains inconsistent.

Without fixing the basics, the promise of 24×7 water remains fragmented at best, delusional at worst. What do you think?