Giving public water utilities a chance

Publicly owned water utilities are often criticised for being inefficient, incapable of change and failing to reach poor people. Experience in the Indian city of Bangalore, however, shows how external forces can influence a utility to begin responding to demands for improved performance and accountability.

A paper from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA describes how the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) is learning to work with residents to extend the city’s piped water supply to slum areas.

Responsibility for slums is shared between many government agencies, with the city corporation owning much of the land on which informal settlements are located. This has resulted in confusion about who is responsible for water in slums. BWSSB has struggled to cope with insufficient funds, frequent changes in leadership, rapid population growth, expanding urban boundaries, declining groundwater and political interference in setting tariffs.

The great majority of slum residents have been unable to apply for a BWSSB connection as they do not meet the requirement of being able to prove land title. Until recently most slum dwellers depended on public taps, tankers, borewells and illegal connections. Public taps were often provided illegally by politicians keen to secure votes just before elections.

BWSSB has recently been shaken out of its long-standing neglect of slums. Management has had to come to terms with two realities: local groups demanding improved performance and accountability and insufficient revenue as the number of public taps and illegal connections to the utility’s network kept growing. This was exacerbated by the city council cutting funding for taps.

Three pilot projects funded by the Australian agency AusAID demonstrated that water could be piped to slums legally, contractors can work in slums under supervision, residents are willing to pay for improved supply and the traditional problem of lack of tenure can be managed. The projects formed part of a larger programme to build a water supply and sanitation master plan for the city. BWSSB has worked to improve citywide water governance by:

• establishing phone and on-line complaint systems
• reducing unaccounted for water through a leak reduction programme
• increasing the tariff rates but reducing the minimum amount people have to consume
• holding engineers to account if they fail to respond to complaints
• convening monthly meetings to give city residents the chance to talk with engineers
• agreeing with AusAID’s suggestion to establish a social development unit for slums
• working with slum dwellers and their representatives to determine priorities and jointly verify that connections are actually installed.

Bangalore may not yet have achieved a system of water governance which can be described as inclusive, accountable and transparent. However, change is on the way as the utility, NGOs and residents learn to co-operate and bargain with each other. BWSSB’s reforms should encourage policymakers to:

• accept that water privatisation is not likely to happen in the near future in much of South Asia
• work with existing local institutions, rather than routinely condemning poorly functioning public sector organisations
• recognise and disseminate local successes, however modest they may seem initially
• realise that utilities need to employ social development specialists, both before and after making connections to slum neighbourhoods, in order to help ensure sustainable service with reliable supply and accurate billing
• develop appropriate incentives to encourage engineers to work with slums to achieve broader policy objectives.

Source(s):
‘When utilities muddle through: pro-poor governance in Bangalore’s public water sector’, Environmental & Urbanization, vol 17, no 1, pp 201-288, by Genevieve Connors, April 2005

Funded by: MIT Center for International Studies, The Switzer Foundation, UN Habitat

id21 Research Highlight: 17 August 2005

Further Information:
Genevieve Connors
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave, Room 7-346
Cambridge MA 02139, USA

Tel: +65 9186 4525
Contact the contributor: gconnors@mit.edu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Other related links:
'Will water privatisation deliver the services?'

'Water privatisation fails to fulfil its promises'

'Putting water and sanitation at the heart of poverty reduction'

'Communities can create their own water supply and sanitation'