From water-rich cities such as Guwahati and Delhi, to waterscarce towns in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the possibility of 24-hour access to piped water remains a mere dream for urban households in India. The concept of 24-hour water supply, seven days a week (24/7), year round, has become so alien to our mindset, that even new supply systems are designed for less than a continuous supply. This increases the size (and costs) of supply infrastructure, pushes higher coping costs on to consumers (in the form of storage tanks, pumps, water filters, bottled water, boiling of water, and in waiting for the water to come), and is dissatisfying for both consumers and system operators.

The benefits of continuous water supply are well-documented. However, much work is needed to understand the costs, and the operating, management, and behavioral changes, to transition successfully to a 24/7 supply system. At the request of the Government of India’s Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), and with funding from Sweden’s International Development Agency (SIDA), the Water and Sanitation Program-South Asia (WSP-SA) initiated a program to assess what it would take to move to a 24/7 water supply system. Through rapid technical assessments, draft strategies were developed for Guwahati (Assam), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), and the Delhi metropolitan area. In parallel, the Government of Karnataka and the World Bank carried out distribution system diagnostics in three cities in Karnataka — Belgaum, Gulbarga, and Hubli-Dharwad. Results of these studies were discussed in a national workshop organized by the Change Management Forum (led by the Administrative Staff College of India) and WSP-SA in Hyderabad in September 2003.

The two day workshop proceedings captured in this field note demonstrated that conversion from discontinuous supply to continuous supply is both essential and achievable in the Indian context. It also amply illustrated how this can only be achieved through carefully structured strategies based on known practical procedures and investment programs, tailored to the individual needs of each city. The country has the capacity, resources, and talent required to run a 24-hour water supply system, it makes no sense to be still discussing 24/7 as an option, it must become the norm.