Almost all urban water systems in South Asia provide intermittent water supply. Intermittent supply
can impair water quality and cause users to adopt costly coping mechanisms. In 2009, Nagpur and Amravati,
two cities in Maharashtra, India, began offering continuous water supply to pilot areas, hoping to improve
water access, water quality and reduce household storage, treatment, and collection of water from alternate
sources. Using a mixed-methods approach that used a billing panel dataset from Amravati and as well
as utility staff and household interviews in both cities, continuous water supply was found to increase
water demand compared to intermittent supply, especially among slum households, although storage and
treatment practices fort he most part remained unchanged while other water collection activities were not
eliminated. The results indicate that many of the purported benefits of continuous water supply do not accrue
automatically to the consumer.Master of City and Regional Plannin
