Water for India’s Poor: Who Pays the Price for Broken Promises?

The poor do not consume as much water as the rest of the population, but despite the promises, despite the bland assertions of politicians and policy makers, they can and frequently do pay for what little they consume. And they usually pay much more per liter consumed than those who are better-off. Poor people pay for water in two rather different ways. First, there are ‘user charges’, the payments in cash and kind that people make willingly, in exchange for a reliable supply of water. And then there are ‘coping costs’ – payments that are outside the system and that ought not to be required, but that they have to pay to gain access to water even when it is supposedly free.