This article was downloaded by: [University of Haifa Library] On: 24 August 2013, At: 03:08 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of the American Planning Association Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpa20 Drinking Water for the Third World Jerry Anthony Published online: 26 Nov 2007. To cite this article: Jerry Anthony (2007) Drinking Water for the Third World, Journal of the American Planning Association, 73:2, 223-237, DOI: 10.1080/01944360708976155 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01944360708976155 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Transcript
This article was downloaded by: [University of Haifa Library]On: 24 August 2013, At: 03:08Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of the American Planning AssociationPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpa20
Drinking Water for the Third WorldJerry AnthonyPublished online: 26 Nov 2007.
To cite this article: Jerry Anthony (2007) Drinking Water for the Third World, Journal of the American Planning Association,73:2, 223-237, DOI: 10.1080/01944360708976155
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01944360708976155
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basichuman right. . . . Yet even today, clean water is a luxury that remains outof the reach of many. . . . In this new century, water, its sanitation, andits equitable distribution pose great social challenges for our world. (KofiAnnan, United Nations Secretary General on World Water Day, March22, 2001 [World Water Day, 2001])
About one in five people in the developing world does not have access tosafe drinking water (World Bank, 2004). Of those that do, several hundredmillion do not get adequate quantities, or pay exorbitant prices for it. Every
day, millions of adults (largely women) spend several hours procuring water forcooking and drinking. Waterborne diseases disrupt individuals’ lives and eco-nomic activities, and cause 10,000–15,000 deaths worldwide each day (UnitedNations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2003). Because ofthe direct and indirect benefits of affordable access to safe drinking water (seeChoguill, Franceys, & Cotton, 1993; Grunsky, 2001), considerable policyattention has been focused on this issue in developing countries. The UnitedNations’ millennium development goal for environmental sustainability aims to“halve the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by2015” (United Nations Habitat, 2003, p.32).
Over the years, donor agencies and national, state and local governments indeveloping countries have taken several different approaches to increasing theavailability of safe drinking water, but with limited success (Choguill, 1996;Gutierrez, 2001; Winpenny, 2003). The percentage of the population in de-veloping countries with affordable and adequate access to safe drinking waterhas remained virtually unchanged over three decades (World Bank, 2004).
Third World cities have other significant deficiencies, such as inadequateaccess to sanitation, electricity, and transportation, but the lack of safe drinkingwater is the most difficult infrastructure problem to resolve (Gilbert, 1992;Menendez, 1991; Sergeldin, 1994). Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipurin northeast India, is a medium-sized city with stable social and political institu-tions. Of the 400,000 residents that live within the Greater Imphal Region (GIR),fewer than half are connected to the city’s piped water system. Expanding thepopulation served by the piped water network would be costly but many residents
223
The proportion of Third World urbanresidents with access to safe drinkingwater has not increased appreciably in thepast three decades. This article describesfindings from a door-to-door survey ofImphal in northeast India, identifyingproblems that are widespread in thedeveloping world:. Imphal’s piped watersupply system is deficient; a majority ofresidents procure drinking water froma variety of sources; and more than halfthe residents spend over a fifth of theirincomes for water. While expanding thecentralized piped water network wouldbe consistent with the existing paradigm,the Imphal case highlights the potentialof culturally accepted, community-based,water supply alternatives. I argue thatplanners and policymakers in the ThirdWorld should seriously consider suchalternatives, which could provide feasible,sustainable means of addressing the globaldrinking water shortage at least in thenear term, with currently availableresources.
Jerry Anthony ([email protected])is an associate professor in the Universityof Iowa’s graduate program in urban andregional planning. He researches housingand land use issues in the United Statesand South Asia. He has several years ofprofessional planning experience and iscurrently engaged in many communitydevelopment efforts in Iowa City, IA.
face a water supply crisis. While Imphal’s water supplyproblems may not be as severe as those faced by Karachior Addis Ababa, current literature in this field has focusedonly on a few large cities. The problems of medium-sizedand smaller cities such as Imphal, where the majority of thepopulation lives, are ignored (United Nations Habitat,2003; World Bank, 2004).
In this article, I examine Imphal’s water supply crisisand compare the potential of several supply mechanismsusing five criteria: (a) quantity and reliability of supply,(b) water quality, (c) equity in access, (d) environmentalimpacts, and (e) cost-recovery and sustainability. Theevaluation is based on data from household surveys; visitsto water production, treatment, and distribution facilities;and interviews with local officials. I conclude by suggestingthat planning and investment options for drinking waterin developing countries should not be limited to central-ized solutions; instead decentralized, community-basedapproaches should also be supported and promoted.
Background
In Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s much acclaimed1981 work Poverty and Famine, he states that “scarcity isthe characteristic of people not having enough . . . but it isnot the characteristic of there not being enough. While thelatter can be the cause of the former, it is one of the manycauses” (p. 1). According to Sen (1995), one of the mostsignificant causes of famine is an “acquirement problem,”making many families unable to procure food at affordableprices. Gleick (1998) contends that most countries in theworld are not water-deficient; in many cases, people facewater scarcities because they have acquirement problems.Market interventions cannot ordinarily alleviate acquirementproblems; they need significant public policy intervention(Sen, 1995).
Policy responses to the urban water crisis in developingcountries in the postcolonial era can be grouped into twophases. During the first phase (late 1960s to early 1970s),responses focused on increasing the role of the public sector.As Rondinelli and Cheema (1988) have demonstrated, thistook several forms: (a) increasing public expenditures onwater supply projects; (b) expanding direct governmentprovision of piped water by building up local governmentcapacity; (c) improving the organizational efficiency andresponsiveness of public water utilities; and (d) loweringproduction costs using better technology.
These attempts met with limited success for a numberof reasons (Brocklehurst, 2002). First, urban populationgrowth in Third World cities has remained close to 4% per
year for over four decades (Rondinelli & Cheema, 1988;World Bank, 1994, 2004). Meeting the infrastructureneeds of such rapid growth would challenge even wealthygovernments in developed countries. Second, in many placescorruption diverted significant portions of the scarce fundsavailable for infrastructure projects. Third, local elites oftenhave a vested interest in withholding infrastructure fromthe urban poor (Castro, 2004). Finally, many large-scaleprojects end up as financially unsustainable, money-losingventures. For all these reasons, by the early 1980s there wasa shift in emphasis, from increasing the role of the publicsector toward decreasing it (Cook & Kirkpatrick, 1988).
The second phase, therefore, focused on devolvingpublic responsibilities through privatization. The case forprivatization was based on two claims. One was that theprivate sector is more efficient than the public sector. Thisclaim gained considerable momentum due to the shiftfrom statist to neoliberal ideologies in the 1970s and 1980sin countries that fund the World Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF; Guiterrez, 2001). Claim numbertwo was that water is an economic good, and thus privateenterprises more attuned to market forces than publicagencies would manage it to achieve its highest value use,which would be an optimum result from an economicperspective. This claim originated in the 1980s, but got amajor boost after the 1992 International Conference onWater and Environment in Dublin. One of the “DublinPrinciples” stated that “Water has an economic value in allits competing uses and should be recognized as an economicgood . . . . Managing water as an economic good is animportant way of achieving its efficient and equitableuse. . . .” (World Meteorological Organization, 2001,p. 2). Following this declaration, most international aidagencies changed their policies to promote private sectorparticipation in water management programs in significantways (Guiterrez, 2001; Schulpen & Gibbon, 2002).
PrivatizationPrivatized water provision can take at least two distinct
forms. The first is complete takeover of a public water util-ity by a private company. In developing countries, this hasusually meant transfer of ownership and operation to oneof the seven or eight global water/sewer companies (such asFrance’s Vivendi or Suez, or USA’s Enron). The World Bankand the IMF have actively facilitated this type of privatiza-tion by making it a prerequisite for approval of variousfinancial assistance packages (Budds & McGranahan, 2003).
The second type of privatization involves private-public cooperation. For example, private companies maydistribute and collect charges for water produced by publicagencies. Private companies usually distribute water
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through a piped system, but some use water vendors, whouse a variety of modes ranging from trucks to buckets totransport the water to consumers.1
Has privatization improved access to safe and affordablewater? Case-based evidence from several countries suggeststhat privatization helped improve water quality, acceleratecapital investment in water infrastructure, and marginallyincrease water supply coverage (Alcazar, Abdala & Shirley,2000). In some cases, private water utilities were requiredto comply with environmental regulations in ways rarelyrequired of public utilities (Buller, 1996).
Despite these successes, experiments involving privatetakeovers of public water utilities have generally not suc-ceeded. The most notable failure occurred in Cochabamba,Bolivia’s third largest metropolis, with a 2000 populationof about 750,000. Rapid population growth in the 1980splaced greater demands on Cochabamba’s public watersupply utility than it could meet. In 1997, amidst allega-tions that the utility was a corrupt and inefficient agencywith a bloated workforce, a World Bank structural reformpackage for Bolivia forced it to privatize. Aguas Del Tunari(ADT, a front company for the multinational conglomerateBechtel) was awarded a 40-year contract to provide drinkingwater to Cochabamba. The public utility’s water infra-structure, valued at about $200 million, was transferred toADT for $15,635. Along with the infrastructure, ADTalso got control over all groundwater, including the rightto charge for water from preexisting wells. Resistance tothis privatization first led to the formation of local politicalparties (Assies, 2003). As water tariffs rose, and as Bolivia’seconomic crisis worsened, this local opposition to waterprivatization metamorphosed into a national campaignagainst all privatization that climaxed in a countrywideuprising against the government of Bolivia in 2000. Inresponse, the Bolivian government cancelled ADT’s contract(Oliviera, 2004).
In 1993 in Argentina, the French utility CompagnieGenerales Des Eaux won the privatization bid for waterand sewer services in Tucuman, the country’s smallestprovince. Faced with a doubling of water prices shortlyafter Compagnie Generales took over, residents ofTucuman refused to pay (Public Citizen, 2003a; WaterWars Worldwide, 2003). In spite of legal threats and nego-tiation attempts, the residents resisted, forcing CompagnieGenerales to withdraw from Tucuman in 1998 (WaterWars Worldwide, 2003).
In both Cochabamba and Tucuman water becamemore expensive after privatization, and privatization becamevery controversial at the local and national levels, withfiscal consequences for the private companies as well aslocal and federal governments. Similar events have occurred
in several other countries in South America, Asia, and Africa(Budds & McGranahan, 2003; Hall, 2002).
Public-private experiments involving distribution ofpublicly produced water by private companies have alsonot fared well. In 1997, based on a World Bank recom-mendation, Indonesia awarded 25-year contracts withPAM Jaya, the local municipal water supplier, to twoprivate companies (Wermasubum, 2003). The contractsrequired the companies to help PAM Jaya expand coverage,reduce pilferage, and increase fee collection (Public Citizen,2003b). In turn, PAM Jaya was required to shut down smalllocal businesses that produced and sold water and pay theprivate corporations a water-production fee (InternationalConsortium of Investigative Journalists, 2003). Althoughwater supply in some affluent suburbs improved, thecompanies failed to reduce pilferage or improve fee collec-tion. Most of Jakarta’s poor received few benefits. In thewords of PAM Jaya engineer Feri Watna “We already hadthe distribution networks, all those pipes, the installations,the consumers and everything else. The companies . . . justcame in and robbed everything we had” (quoted in PublicCitizen, 2003b, p.2).
Water-vending also does not supply affordably pricedwater. For example, 100 liters of privately vended watercosts between US$2.50–3.00 in Lima (Peru) and US$4.00–4.50 in Bandung (Indonesia), while local public agenciesprovide the same quantity for about US$0.40–$0.50(World Bank, 2004). Water is prohibitively expensive inCebu and Ormac (in the Philippines), where about 60% ofthe households are served by private vendors, as well as inMandera (Kenya) and Diourbel (Senegal), where 90% ofhouseholds are so served (Kirwan, 1989; Roth, 1987;Zaroff & Okun, 1984).
In many places today, announcing a water privatizationinitiative produces a negative reaction. In 2001, Ghanareceived a new $110 million structural adjustment loan fromthe World Bank that required the Ghanaian governmentto double electricity and water charges, and lease the publicwater utility company to multinational water companies.This led to widespread protests and the formation of anationwide grassroots opposition coalition that preventedcarrying out the initiative (Grusky, 2001).
Many researchers (e.g., De Walle, 1989; Foster, 2002;Roth, 1987) claim that water supply systems are the mostdifficult of all urban systems to privatize. Why is this so?First, water is commonly viewed as a free good, like air. Itis often politically infeasible to price it based on true costs,and governments typically attempt this only when theyhave a significant incentive to do so, such as a World Bankloan (Bakker, 2003; Bienen & Waterbury, 1989). Second,water priced at market rates is unaffordable for the majority
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of the population in Third World cities and could provokereactions similar to those in Argentina (Nickson & Vargas,2002). Third, a piped water system is a natural monopolybecause of economies of scale (Ostrom & Ostrom, 1977).Though it may be efficient to give operations to one entity,and private companies often seek sole control, it may notbe prudent to allow a private company a monopoly on suchan essential good (Bahl & Lin, 1992). Finally, it may bedifficult to reconcile the public interest in water with privatecompanies’ aims of efficiency and profit maximization in apublic/private collaboration (Bakker, 2003; Jessop, 1997).
In summary then, even though privatization hasimproved access to potable water in several places, priva-tization has yielded more disappointments than successes.The 2001 Accra declaration on the right to water expressescurrent popular sentiment:
Water is an increasingly scarce natural resource, andas a result crucial to the securities of our societies andsovereignty of our country. For this reason alone, itsownership, control, delivery and management belongin the public domain today and tomorrow. (p. 1)
Privatization also usually involves significant amountsof money, that only international aid agencies can provide.From 1996 to 2001, international aid for water projects indeveloping countries averaged $5.2 billion a year (Winpenny,2003). Meeting the millenium development water supplygoal of providing access to safe water for 500 millionpeople would require at least $13 billion per year for thenext 10 years (Global Water Partnership, 2000), twice thecurrent annual aid for water.
Policymakers in developing countries often face un-appealing choices: doing nothing to improve water supply,devoting scarce resources to expanding inefficient publicsystems, or meeting the privatization demands of foreigngovernments and aid agencies while ignoring the poorersegments of society (Indonesian Forum for the Environ-ment, 2003; Nickson & Vargas, 2002; Schulpen & Gib-bon, 2002). Water supply problems in Third World citieshave become “wicked problems” (Rondinelli & Cheema,1988) whose constraints and targets keep changing (Rittel& Webber, 1973).
The Case of Imphal
With a population of about 240,000 in 1995, Imphalis the administrative capital and largest city of the state ofManipur in northeast India (Office of the Registrar andCensus Commissioner, 1997; see Figure 1). Since 1981, all
infrastructure and development planning for the city ofImphal has been coordinated for the Greater ImphalRegion (GIR), which had a population of about 350,200in 1995, and 401,000 in 2001 (Office of the Registrar andCensus Commissioner, 1997, 2003). The region has amoderate climate and receives about 80–110 inches ofrainfall annually, most of it between March and October.It is relatively flat, but ringed by hills from which surfacerunoff flows into the region. The soil structure of the regionconsists of clay and silt interspersed with layers of sand.These sand bands vary in thickness from 6 to 18 metersand are found within 100 meters of the surface. The rockformations underlying the clay and sand layers have intensefoldings and a few fault lines that make the region seismi-cally active and prone to frequent, low-intensity tremors.The topography, combined with abundant precipitation,
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Figure 1. Location of Imphal.
Note:The national boundaries shown here may not coincide exactly withthose claimed by the countries themselves.
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result in a high ground water table and numerous waterbodies. Yet safe drinking water in Imphal is scarce.
Since the late 1980s, attention has focused on thescarcity of safe drinking water in the region (Anthony &Singh, 1995; Consulting Engineering Services, 1988). Asignificant proportion of women spend two or more hourseach day collecting water for daily household needs, imped-ing social and economic development and gender equity(see Figure 2). The Outline Development Plan for Imphal(School of Planning and Architecture, 1991) identifiedwater supply as one of the most serious constraints toimproving the quality of life in the city. Even thoughresidents use multiple water sources, the piped watersupply system operated by the state’s Public Health andEngineering Department (PHED) is the sole focus of
government-initiated policy discussions and planningattention. Although the distribution network and treatmentplant capacities were incrementally expanded in the late1990s, the majority of Imphal’s residents do not have accessto safe and affordable water (Department of Developmentof the Northeastern Region, 2004; Singh, 2003).
Methods
We used a door-to-door survey of households tocollect information on water consumption, asking aboutthe sources of water used, expenditure on water, perceivedhealth risks of water from different sources, household leveltreatment of drinking water, and level of satisfaction with
Anthony: Drinking Water for theThird World 227
Figure 2. Women waiting for water at a public standpoint.
Source: Author’s photograph.
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the various sources, demographic and socioeconomic data,and perceptions of the water crisis.2 We sampled all house-holds in the GIR, stratifying to obtain representation fromall nine of its planning zones. 3 We publicized the surveythrough notices in two local newspapers and conducted itover five consecutive days. Out of 260 questionnaires, 24were rejected for incompleteness and I used 236 in theanalysis that follows.4 We also made field visits to watertreatment plants, tested water quality, and interviewedofficials of several public agencies. While the sample is notlarge enough to draw statistically valid conclusions for themetropolitan region, it confirms general observationssuggested by other sources of information.
Findings
Sources of WaterResidents of Imphal met their water needs from seven
different sources: piped water, private ponds, neighborhoodponds, tubewells and handpumps, water tankers, watertrolleys, and rainwater harvesting, with most householdsusing more than one source. Table 1 shows the extent towhich survey respondents reported they used each source.
Piped Water. Imphal’s piped water supply system wasset up in 1903 to supply about 23 liters per capita per day(LPCD) to a population of about 8,000 persons. Thenetwork was expanded in 1913 to serve 40,000 personsand again in 1965 to supply 114 LPCD to 132,000 persons.Since then a few more expansions have occurred, and in1995 the network extended over 1,775 hectares. The systemis simple in operation: water is drawn from undergroundand surface sources, pumped to elevated reservoirs, treated,and then distributed using a gravity-activated distributionsystem (Anthony & Singh, 1995; Consulting EngineeringServices, 1988). Consumers access the system by securingprivate connections to their homes, or use free public
standpoints at several locations. Each standpoint in theregion serves about 5,000 people, and there are many morein the downtown than in peripheral areas.
Private Ponds. Most detached houses, which constituteover 90% of the housing stock in the GIR, have one or moreponds. These private ponds (along with neighborhoodponds described below) are the traditional water supplymechanisms of the area. Fifteen percent of householdsreported these ponds to be their primary sources of drinkingwater. Most private ponds have storage capacities of 25–50cubic meters, or enough to meet all the water needs of oneadult for 150–300 days without replenishment.
Neighborhood Ponds. Neighborhood ponds arelocated on communally owned (not private or govern-ment-owned) land and are found throughout the GIR.Most neighborhood ponds are managed by voluntaryneighborhood associations who regulate pond use andensure pond maintenance and water quality. Almost 97%of the households surveyed used water from neighborhoodponds, far more than used private ponds or piped water,with over one third citing neighborhood ponds as theirprimary source. Unlike private ponds, neighborhoodponds have large storage capacities: about two thirds hadcapacities between 420 and 1,800 cubic meters, and onefourth had capacities in excess of 3,600 cubic meters.
Tubewells and Handpumps. Recognizing the limi-tations of the piped water network, the PHED has set uptubewells (with electric pumping equipment) and hand-pumps at various locations to tap ground water. Tubewellsare built in response to neighborhoods’ requests, and thePHED is the only agency authorized to build them. Thisstringently enforced monopoly aims to prevent uncontrolledexploitation of groundwater. However, PHED requiresbeneficiaries to provide land and pay for construction costs.Handpumps are also installed by the PHED. In 1995, therewere about 1,500 PHED-installed public handpumps inthe GIR. Like tubewells, handpumps are constructed inresponse to neighborhood requests. Unlike tubewells, they
228 Journal of the American Planning Association, Spring 2007, Vol. 73, No. 2
Table 1. Sources of water supply from Imphal survey.
Piped Tubewell/ Private Private NeighborhoodSources of water water handpump Tanker vendor Rainwater ponds ponds
Note:Percentages rounded to the nearest whole number. Secondary sources total more than 100% since most respondents indicated two or more secondarysources.
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do not require much space, so the PHED builds them ongovernment-owned land at no cost to users. Handpumpshave minor maintenance costs that are borne by the PHED.
Water Tankers. Households also buy water fromtankers and store it either in private ponds or in cementtanks and metal containers. Water tankers are operated bythe city, the PHED, and licensed private operators.
Water Trolleys. Many residents buy water by thebucket from water vendors who carry large cans of water inbicycle trolleys or push carts. In downtown Imphal, watertrolleys are the most used source of drinking water after thepiped system. This is because piped water supply pressurein downtown areas is very low, development pressures havecovered up most downtown ponds, and water tankers cannoteasily negotiate narrow and winding downtown streets.
Rainwater Harvesting. With the high amount ofrainfall the GIR receives, harvesting rainwater is a potentiallyviable water source. Across the region a large number ofhouseholds practice rainwater harvesting; even in downtownareas that have high densities and tall structures (5–6 stories),numerous households collect water draining off flat cementroof terraces or sloping tin roofs, and store it in cement orsteel containers.
Cost of WaterHouseholds in Imphal spend a substantial portion of
their income on water (see Figure 3). About half the house-holds surveyed spent more than a fifth of their incomes onwater. Poorer residents had to spend more. Of householdsthat spent less than 1% of their income on water, over threefourths were from the highest income category (see Table 2)while none were from the three lowest income categories.
Comparison of Water SourcesQuantity and Reliability of Supply. Households with
private connections to the piped water system receivedabout 55 LPCD, only about one third of the city’s 165LPCD supply goal (School of Planning and Architecture,1991). Sixty-four percent of the households connected tothe piped water network reported receiving water for 1–3hours every day, and 15% for less than one hour per day.The time when water was available varied from day to day,and there was no advance notice of when water would beavailable; 20% of households with a private connectionstated this was their biggest problem with the piped watersupply. Because water is not supplied throughout the dayor at a reliable time, households use a variety of storagemechanisms; 45% of the households had containers thatcould hold over 500 liters of water (see Figure 4). Anotherproblem was low supply pressures. To overcome this, about41% used electric pumps to increase the amount of water
they received, reducing the supply for consumers withoutsuch pumps. Public standpoints had the same problemswith erratic supply and low pressures, necessitating longwaiting times. In addition, the quantity of water suppliedvaried considerably with seasonal changes in water levels inthe rivers feeding the treatment plants. Significant supplyreductions occurred during the dry period of Novemberthrough February. The erratic supply and variations insupply pressures also allow untreated groundwater toinfiltrate underground pipes and contaminate piped water.
Quantity was also the most significant problem reportedfor private ponds, since they also vary seasonally, sufferingsharply reduced water quantity during the summer. Inmost cases space around ponds is already built up, so pondcapacity cannot be expanded. Neighborhood ponds havea much larger storage capacity; still, some of the smallerneighborhood ponds are so reduced in the driest monthsof the year that neighborhood associations limit householdwater use to conserve water for essential needs.
Tubewells and handpumps are fairly reliable sources ofcurrent supply, although this will not be true over time asthe groundwater table drops. While water tankers canreach most neighborhoods, anecdotal evidence suggeststhat private tanker operators serve some neighborhoodsand avoid others based on their friendship and kinship
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Figure 3. Surveyed households’ expenditures on water.
0
10
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< 1% 1–5% 5.01–10% 10.01–20% > 20%
Percent ofrespondenthouseholds
Percent of income spent for water
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links. They also favor higher income areas where they bothask and get higher prices. Water trolleys too are unreliable,as vendors come by neighborhoods every day or two atrandom times, so waiting periods can be long and unpre-dictable. Finally, rainwater is not available during the dryseason (November–February).
Water Quality. Most households believed that pipedwater was no purer than water from other sources. Overtwo thirds of the households boil and filter treated pipedwater before drinking it. They believed water from privateponds to be of the worst quality among all seven sources,and subject it to considerable treatment before consump-tion. Most people also treat water from neighborhood pondsbefore consumption, though they believe it to be of muchbetter quality than private pond water.
Tubewell water, which is not treated, was regardedby most households as fit for drinking without boiling orfiltering, one of only two sources so perceived. Respondinghouseholds did not perceive handpump water to be aspure, perhaps justifiably, since it is drawn from close to thesurface (less than 10 feet) and is therefore more susceptibleto contamination. Tanker and trolley water are also treatedbefore consumption, while households regarded rainwater,like tubewell water, as pure and uncontaminated and usedit without any treatment.
Availability and Affordability. The piped watersystem, though designed to serve about two thirds of thearea’s population (Singh, 2003), serves less than half thisnumber. Private access to the network is largely determinedby income and location. Only households living in areaswith water pipelines can be connected. Thirty-six percentof households in the highest income group had access topiped water, while only 11% in the lowest income group did.
Over 60% of the households have one or more privateponds on their property; those that do not, lack the space.However, neighborhood ponds are scattered throughout
the region. Almost 97% of the households used water fromneighborhood ponds, with over a third of the householdsciting neighborhood ponds as their primary sources. More-over, access to neighborhood ponds did not vary muchwith income.
Though the GIR has a high groundwater table, aprerequisite for the use of tubewells and handpumps, thesetwo sources are not widely used. This may be due to threefactors: (a) high iron content in the area’s water that requiresusing expensive ferric-removers, (b) sand rushing intoground borings for tubewells and handpumps (due to sandbands in the soil), increasing the cost of getting sufficientyield, and (c) the PHED’s monopoly on tubewell andhandpump construction and its practice of collecting allcosts of tubewell construction from the beneficiaries inadvance. These factors drive up costs and make handpumpsless affordable and tubewells unaffordable, especially forlow-income households.
Most households identified high cost as the mostsignificant problem with tanker water, although it wasreported to be less expensive than water from several othersources. Trolley water clearly has the highest recurring cost.The price of a bucket of trolley water ranged from 1 to 4rupees per five gallons, depending on the season, the neigh-borhood, and the rapport between supplier and customer.This is not affordable for most low- and moderate-incomehouseholds. Finally, while rainwater harvesting has norecurring costs, the capital investment required for ap-propriate types of roofing, pipes, storage, and pumpingequipment reduces its potential as a source for low-incomehouseholds.
Cost Recovery and Sustainability. The piped watersystem does not break even. Only about 30% of its oper-ating and maintenance costs were collected from revenues(School of Planning and Architecture, 1991). Several factorscontributed to this low cost-recovery rate. First, user charges
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Table 2. Percent of surveyed households’ incomes spent on water by household income grouping.
Monthly household income
Percent of surveyed households’ <750 750–1500 1500–2500 2500–4000 >4000income spent on water rupees rupees rupees rupees rupees Total
had not been revised in over a decade, and thus bore littlerelationship to the cost of production. Piped water is ex-pected to be free good supplied by government, so there islittle political support for rate increases. Whenever thePHED or the city attempted to increase user charges, wide-spread public protests defeated them. Second, tariff collectionpolicies are weak and some consumers do not even knowthey have to pay (Consulting Engineering Services, 1988;School of Planning and Architecture, 1991; Singh, 2003).Finally, as is common for piped networks in the developingworld, as much as 30% of treated water is pilfered.
Private ponds are virtually costless to operate, but withincreasing urbanization and rising land values, many ofthem are being covered up to create space for buildings.Neighborhood ponds, on the other hand, look clearlysustainable. About 80% of neighborhood ponds had welldeveloped maintenance and management systems controlled
by neighborhood associations that are over a century old.These associations had a variety of civic responsibilities inthe distant past, but for the last three or four decades theyhave focused on ensuring that neighborhood ponds arewell maintained. Eighty-six percent of the ponds were regu-larly cleaned, and 41% of households reported participatingin neighborhood pond-cleansing efforts. All users partici-pated in pond-cleansing efforts at least once in the last 5years, indicating a well developed sense of communalownership of this resource. Since decisions to cover neigh-borhood ponds must be communally approved, they facea lesser threat from development than do private ponds.
Tubewells require significant capital investment,making them unaffordable to a large majority. Handpumpsare relatively less expensive but often run dry. Since tankersand trolleys supply water produced by the piped watersystem, their sustainability is subject to the same constraints
Anthony: Drinking Water for theThird World 231
Figure 4. Stores selling water storage containers.
Source: Author’s photograph.
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as the piped water system. Moreover, they are the mostexpensive sources for consumers. Of the seven sources,rainwater harvesting is clearly the most sustainable. How-ever, harvesting rainwater has high initial costs that arebeyond the reach of many low-income households.
Environmental Effects. As noted earlier, Imphal islocated in an area with a high level of seismic activity. Thefrequent tremors cause settlement of pipe sections, result-ing in cracks. These cracks can cause substantial water loss,disrupt supply, and be expensive to repair. Thus, someenvironmental challenges need to be overcome in order tomaintain the piped water system. Any expansion of thepiped water network would require construction of newtreatment plants and excavations to lay new pipes, bothwith adverse environmental effects. These are due in partto tankers and water trolleys, because they distribute waterfrom the piped water system. Tubewells and handpumpsdeplete groundwater.
Of the seven sources, private ponds, neighborhoodponds, and rainwater have no negative effects on the envi-ronment. Neighborhoods ponds absorb significant amountsof surface runoff and have large surface area. Given theirubiquitous presence in the region, neighborhood ponds havesignificant impacts on the area’s microclimate and ecology.
Reports in the local media have linked the coveringand development of private ponds to an increase in flashfloods during rainy seasons. Neighborhood ponds are beingcovered up at a far slower rate, but as population growsthey too may begin to disappear. Maintaining neighbor-hood ponds as a formal water supply mechanism may helppreserve them.
In summary, of Imphal residents’ seven different sourcesof water, only the piped water network is exclusively ownedand operated by a public agency, and about 50% of thearea’s households are connected to the system. Two tradi-tional sources (private and neighborhood ponds) are thelargest primary sources of drinking water, though the pipedwater system was supposed to replace these as a safe andaffordable source. Despite much investment over a 90-yearperiod, the piped water system is not only less accessiblethan the traditional sources, but also provides water ofdubious quality. It has not been able to keep pace with theincreasing demand for drinking water, even as the capacityof traditional sources has declined. To fill the gap, tube-wells and handpumps, tankers, trolleys, and rainwaterharvesting have emerged. Imphal’s residents spend largeproportions of their incomes on water. While this is commonin other Indian cities (Sharma, 2000) and elsewhere in theworld (United Nations Habitat, 2003; Zaroff & Okun,1984), in a water-rich area like Imphal, it indicates anacquirement problem.
Improving Access to Affordable Waterfor Imphal’s Residents
The survey indicates that Imphal’s public piped watersystem delivers inadequate quantities of water, of dubiousquality, at unpredictable times, primarily to higher incomeareas, without covering the cost of service. Expansion ofthe piped water system would require significant investment,most likely obtained from international aid agencies orthrough privatization. Yet international agencies can helponly a limited number of cities and often focus on thelargest cities in a country (United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2003; United NationsHabitat, 2003). Firms would be unlikely to be interestedin privatization, since it would require capital investmentwhile offering poor returns due in part to existing culturalattitudes towards paying for piped water.
Yet wicked problems like this need innovative responses(Blanco, 1995; Rittel & Weber, 1973), and redefining theproblem may generate new ways of solving it (Rittel &Weber, 1973). The water supply problem has consistentlybeen portrayed as a production-and-delivery puzzle: (a) who(public or private agencies) should deliver the water producedin a centralized location? (b) at what cost? and (c) howshould capital and operating costs be recovered? Thesequestions assume that water will be produced in a centrallocation and then distributed, because only centralizedsystems are thought to deliver good quality water at low cost(Cook & Kirkpatrick, 1988). But centralized systems usuallyrequire more physical and administrative infrastructure,degenerate quickly, and are difficult to plan and operate ina service area that includes historic areas, colonial neighbor-hoods, newly planned areas, urbanizing villages, and infor-mal settlements (Sharma, 2000). Therefore, decentralizedsystems should be carefully examined (Foster, 2002).
In the survey questionnaire, we asked households tolist their problems with the water supply sources they used.Combining these data with information from interviewsand field trips, I ranked the seven sources of water in Imphalfrom the worst (i.e., having the greatest number of problems)to the best (see Table 3). Results indicate that neighborhoodponds are the highest ranked source, while piped waterranks third. Two other sources rank close to piped water:rainwater, and tubewells and handpumps. Neighborhoodponds provide substantial quantities of water at virtuallyno cost and are spatially dispersed, thereby providinguniform access. In addition, they are supported by low-cost,participatory, institutionalized maintenance mechanismsthat may be sustainable. Could neighborhood ponds betransformed from the informal mechanism they currentlyare into an alternative, formal water supply mode?
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Foster (2002) and the World Bank (2004) list threeprerequisites for a sustainable infrastructure system: decen-tralized ownership of assets, use of private participation inoperations, and a level of regulation close to the end user.Neighborhood ponds satisfy these conditions and couldthus be a sustainable water supply source. However, therehave been very few decentralized water production experi-ments in urban areas (Choguill, 1999). Critics of a decen-tralized approach claim that such an approach would lackthe scale economies of centralized production and wouldtherefore not be financially feasible. They also argue thatwater quality could be suspect since it would be difficult tocontrol for quality at multiple locations. Finally, governmentand development agencies have long believed that urbanresidents, who usually have higher incomes, educationalattainments, and aspirations than rural residents, would beaverse to decentralized, nonpiped approaches. Therefore, itis important to assess how neighborhood ponds comparewith the piped water system on financial feasibility, waterquality, and social acceptance.
Financial FeasibilityThe 2003–04 annual development plan for Imphal
budgeted 41 million rupees to expand one water treatment
plant (Department of Development of the NortheasternRegion, 2004). This would increase the piped water systemcapacity by 2.3 million liters per day and serve 6,800 morepeople at a cost of about 6,000 rupees per person. At thisrate, reaching the entire unserved population of the GIRwould require about 1.68 billion rupees. Neither the citynor state governments can provide such funding. Thetreatment plant expansion was financed by federal funds.While private-sector involvement is theoretically possible,it is unlikely for reasons noted earlier.
Increases in water rates or attempts to improve collec-tion may become major political issues. For more than twodecades, politicians at the state and local levels have declinedto attempt such changes. Since the state government fundsmuch of the cost of operating the system, the PHED haslittle incentive to improve cost recovery.
In contrast, existing neighborhood ponds do not needany additional investment, though developing new neigh-borhood ponds would require capital for land acquisitionand pond construction. Since no new neighborhood pondshave been constructed in over five decades, cost estimatesare not available, but they are likely to cost considerablyless than water treatment plants on a per-household basis.Neighborhood ponds are also virtually cost free in operation;
Anthony: Drinking Water for theThird World 233
Table 3. Summary comparison of alternate water supply sources.
Comparison dimensions
Directly ranked by respondentsa Assessed indirectlyc
Notes: All scores are based on survey responses. This table shows each source’s mean ranking on each dimension (or average of two dimensions where noted),rounded to the nearest whole number.a. Respondents ranked the current quantity, reliability, quality, availability, and affordability of each supply mode on a scale ranging from 1 (least
desirable) to 7 (most desirable).b. Figures in this column are the average of respondents’ separate scores for availability and affordability for each source. Piped water had an average
score of 5 on this parameter because it scored very low on availability but very high on affordability since, given the low collection rate on charges, itis virtually free.
c. These dimensions combined responses to survey questions with information from secondary sources, field interviews, and visits.
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the marginal costs of maintenance are provided directlyby pond users in the form of labor, time, and cash con-tributions. Many of these ponds contain fish that providea high-protein dietary supplement at no cost, therebyaugmenting food supply.
Quality of Water SuppliedThe public perceives piped water and water from
neighborhood ponds to be of comparable quality: About71% of the survey respondents felt that water from eitherof these sources was unfit for drinking without treatment.I am not surprised that piped water should be perceivedthis way.
We visited two water treatment plants in the GIR. Atboth plants, I found that the water was treated with alum(to remove physical and some chemical impurities), butonly sporadically chlorinated, and neither plant had amechanism to measure chlorination levels. The possibilityof contamination at the water treatment plant was very highbecause the treated water storage tanks were not covered,and there was no mechanism to regularly monitor thequality of water entering or leaving the plant. Althoughphysical and chemical quality tests were conducted, bio-logical-quality testing was rare, since the PHED does nothave appropriate facilities for this. Furthermore, the pipedwater was likely contaminated as it flowed through the dis-tribution network because of ground water infiltration andillegal tapping. Thus, the widespread practice of treatingpiped water before consumption is perhaps justified.
Neighborhood ponds, in contrast, have a strong puritycontrol ethic. Most ponds have raised stone edging andwood fencing that prevent surface contaminants and animalsfrom polluting the water. Periodically, when water levelsare low, ponds are closed to users and cleaned. Cleaningconsists of removing debris, removing weeds, and repairingponds’ sidewalls (typically made of unbonded stone blocks),which is essential for maintaining water quality and pondcapacity. In addition, almost all neighborhood ponds wereperiodically dosed with alum to reduce physical impurities,while some were bleached to reduce chemical and biologicalcontaminants, and many stocked with fish year-round.Water quality tests (not reported here) showed that boiledwater from neighborhood ponds and the piped watersystem did not differ much in terms of biological andchemical parameters, and differed only marginally onphysical parameters (piped water had less particulate matter).
Sanitary sewage disposal could have an impact onneighborhood pond water quality. Fewer than 30% ofImphal’s residents are connected to a sanitary sewer system.The rest use septic tanks. Prior studies exploring linksbetween type of sanitation system and waterborne diseases
in Imphal have failed to detect a correlation between septictank use and more disease (see Consulting EngineeringServices, 1988). These studies generally ascribe this to thelarge residential plot sizes, sandy soil, and the widespreadpractice of boiling water before consumption.
Social MoresI did not find any difference in pond usage between
higher- and lower-income households. Almost 30% of thehouseholds who used neighborhood pond water reportedmonthly incomes in the highest income bracket (4,000rupees or more). The percentage of households using pondwater and piped water with incomes in this range was almostthe same (see Table 4). Likewise, I did not find any biasesagainst pond usage based on educational levels; in fact,college graduates headed about 67% of the households thatused neighborhood pond water (see Table 5). This suggeststhat high-income and well-educated households are notbiased against ponds, a common argument against their use.
Policymakers in Imphal, as elsewhere, frequentlymake assumptions that lead them to ignore some solutions(Jaganathan, 1989). These findings indicate that thoseassumptions are sometimes incorrect, and that neighbor-hood ponds can be an affordable, reliable, and sustainablealternative to expanding the piped water system.
Discussion
The mismatch between the need and the supply ofsafe, affordable drinking water, and the lack of funds tobridge the gap parallels concern over the lack of affordablehousing in Third World cities in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.For at least three decades, the dominant planning responseto that crisis was to centralize and mass-produce, with thegovernment becoming a developer-builder of housing forthe urban poor. However, the repeated and large-scalefailures of that approach helped focus policy attention onself-help and housing upgrading programs (World Bank,1990). These approaches have had far greater success andthe World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and theUSAID, in complete reversal of past policies, now stronglyencourage decentralized, incremental, and participatoryhousing solutions with government involved as facilitator,not builder. The lessons learned from affordable housingexperiments should inform water policies.
In some places in the developed world there has beena shift from “government to governance” (Pierre, 2000) inwhich “formal state authority is supplemented or supplantedby increasing reliance on informal authority, particularly inthe forms of negotiated patterns of public-private-commu-
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nity cooperation” (Bakker, 2003, p. 360). In Britain thistrend has resulted in the creation of consumer-controlledwater companies where consumer-shareholders own thecompany assets.5 In Imphal and similar places, community-controlled systems of neighborhoods ponds already exist.Evidence from community-based low-cost sanitation andirrigation programs funded by the World Bank show avariety of obstacles to success: high fixed costs, shortages ofappropriate technical knowledge or human capital resources,community groups that are too large or diverse, and ineffec-tive communication. But for Imphal’s neighborhood ponds,a community-based structure already exists, fixed costs arelow, knowledge required is simple, neighborhood groupsare not large, neighborhoods are homogenous, and groupmembers have frequent interactions amongst themselves.Not all places with water shortages are so fortunate.
From a technical standpoint, piped water is the idealform of supply. But until piped water systems becomereliable, and paying the full costs for piped water becomessocially and politically acceptable and affordable, alternatesources of supply should not be ignored. Planners shouldformally recognize and support alternate sources in theircity’s or region’s overall water supply schemes. In Imphal’scase, a supportive policy environment could include incen-tives such as property tax rebates for areas that have easyaccess to, and depend on, neighborhood pond water morethan on other sources. Simultaneously, the city should useexisting regulatory tools such as land use plans, zoning, and
subdivision regulations to reduce contamination of neigh-borhood pond water and protect ponds from excessive de-velopment pressure. In the medium term, this approach willhelp the public utility focus its limited resources on improv-ing the existing piped water system, rather than expandingand overseeing one much larger with inadequate resources.
Important progress by the public utility would includereducing pilferage, upgrading key system components, andincreasing revenue collection, as well as experimenting withgradual rate increases. The piped water network should beexpanded only to new high-density areas with limitedaccess to neighborhood ponds, and require developers andnew residents pay for capacity expansion as well as to paymore appropriate user fees. In the long term, these measureswill make the public utility more self-sufficient and a bettercandidate for privatization should that option be considered.Under such an approach it may become feasible to expandthe piped water system over the entire region and make itself-sufficient as the financial fortunes of the residents ofImphal improve. At that time, programs to sustain neigh-borhood ponds may be scaled back, an approach consistentwith the progressive improvement strategy advocated bymany researchers (e.g., see Choguill 1996, 1999) forinfrastructure provision in developing countries.
Though other Third World cities may not have neigh-borhood ponds, most have one or more nonpiped watersources. For example, in Delhi, India, while only 57% ofthe population has a piped water connection, 91% have
Anthony: Drinking Water for theThird World 235
Table 4. Percent of pond and piped water users in different household income groups.
Monthly household income
<750 750–1500 1500–2500 2500–4000 >4000rupees rupees rupees rupees rupees Total
Surveyed households using pond water 3.7% 20.7% 19.5% 26.8% 29.3% 100%Surveyed households using piped water 5.5% 19.5% 15.4% 30.7% 28.9% 100%All surveyed households 3.2% 15.3% 23.3% 26.2% 32.0% 100%
Table 5. Percent of surveyed pond and piped water users with different levels of educational attainment.
Highest level of educational attainment
No college degree College degree Beyond college Total
Surveyed households using pond water 32.9% 47.3% 19.8% 100%Surveyed households using piped water 44.1% 42.3% 13.6% 100%All surveyed households 31.8% 49.2% 19.0% 100%
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access to potable water (Sharma, 2000); 34% of the popula-tion obtains its potable water from nonpiped sources, suchas bawlies (traditional underground water tanks that collectand store rainwater). Recognizing, supporting and promot-ing such alternate supply sources in water policy planningcould increase access to safe and affordable drinking water.
Most Third World cities have a significant number ofurban poor living in informal settlements. Such settlementsusually have haphazard street patterns that hinder construc-tion of conventional piped networks (Sharma, 2000). Mostinformal settlements are also illegal, creating a significantobstacle to extending them high-cost piped water connec-tions. Yet residents of these settlements need access to safeand affordable drinking water. Non-networked watersupply modes may be viable alternatives.
The United Nations has designated the decade 2005–2015 as the International Decade for Action on “Water forLife.” For planners and policymakers, there is no bettertime to recognize alternate drinking water sources as goodinterim, and possibly even permanent, solutions. Innovativestrategies to resolve water acquirement problems are notjust desirable. Given water’s impact on health, productivityand quality of life, they are imperative.
AcknowledgementsI am grateful to the Human Settlements Management Institute, NewDelhi, India, for financial support for research leading to this paper,to Sanjib Sarma for very useful suggestions in the early stages of thisresearch, and to Moirangthem Gojendra Singh for invaluable supportin data collection. I acknowledge the helpful comments received fromAnna Joseph, Heather MacDonald, William Page, Amy Helling, andanonymous reviewers of earlier drafts.
Notes1. Water vending is also sometimes an informal sector activity whereinlocal entrepreneurs collect water from cheap sources, transport it towater-deficient neighborhoods, and sell it at premium prices. Somecities have sought to formalize water vending by requiring vendors to belicensed. To obtain and maintain licenses, vendors are required to abideby water quality guidelines.2. This study builds on a collaboratively conducted survey. We consid-ered conducting our detailed household survey by phone, by mail, anddoor-to-door. Phone ownership in Imphal is not universal and wouldoversample higher income households. Mail surveys, especially thosewith questions on income, have a very low response rate in manydeveloping countries. To avoid bias in sampling and to ensure a goodresponse rate, we conducted the survey door-to-door.3. Individuals conducting the survey were equipped with street maps ofparts of each zone that identified the number of houses to be surveyed oneach street. The choice of houses to survey was left to the individual, ameasure necessitated by the absence of updated maps; however, they wereinstructed to avoid clustering, and I examined completed questionnairesto detect it.
4. To improve the quality of the survey instrument, a pretest wasconducted on 12 households. Based on this, the questionnaire wasmodified for use in the actual survey.5. This is a significant turn of events in Britain, where water utilitieswere completely municipalized only in 1957. Prime Minister MargaretThatcher’s demunicipalization drive left them completely privatized bythe late 1980s.
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