Ensuring Water Security in Hyderabad Municipal Area A study of Hydrological settings and Informal Institutional dynamics

Urban water systems often struggle to meet the ever increasing water needs of its people. The marginalized and vulnerable sections of the society who mostly reside in unauthorized areas are cut off from the services provided by the formal institution (government bodies) which are regular piped water supply. Under such a scenario, many informal institutions have cropped up to fill in the demand. The interactions between formal and informal institutions in a water stress set up thus becomes complex and results in conflictual situations. Set on this backdrop, this project aims to understand the structures and the behaviour of the actors involved in urban waterscape that work towards ensuring water supply. Through the study the project will shed light on whether informal institutions manage to survive in the water service delivery while ensuring long term sustainability, cost and equity.

From our institutional analysis, we see a significant linkage between the drinking and the domestic water sectors, the public and the private water enterprises as well as the formal and the informal entities. However, the untreated water is the raw material for the treated water. In the same way, the formal and the informal are connected the extraction of untreated water is done, though not exclusively, but dominantly by the informal sector.