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Demystifying piped water supply: Formality and informality in (peri)urban water provisioning

Author

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  • Vishal Narain

    (Management Development Institute Gurgaon, India)

  • Sumit Vij

    (Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
    University of Geneva, Switzerland)

  • Timos Karpouzoglou

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)

Abstract

Water utilities have favoured the modern ideal of piped networks and infrastructure that is reproduced in policies and discourses about achieving ambitious water targets. In this article, using ethnographic insights from an urbanising village of New Delhi called Rawta, we build on work that challenges the myth of formal water as ‘piped’ water and informal water as ‘non-piped’ and explore both piped and non-piped water as dynamic and socially negotiated water regimes. We analyse how water regimes are shaped by complex constellations of formal and informal actors, institutions and technological practices. What constitutes piped water supply in Rawta is in fact largely constituted by an elaborate informal network of underground pipes and water pumps laid down to realise very specific local water needs. We explore what this kind of informality means for drinking water supply in rapidly urbanising peripheries.

Suggested Citation

  • Vishal Narain & Sumit Vij & Timos Karpouzoglou, 2023. "Demystifying piped water supply: Formality and informality in (peri)urban water provisioning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(6), pages 1066-1082, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:6:p:1066-1082
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980221130930
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Vij, Sumit & Narain, Vishal & Karpouzoglou, Timothy & Mishra, Pratik, 2018. "From the core to the periphery: Conflicts and cooperation over land and water in periurban Gurgaon, India," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 382-390.
    2. Margreet Z. Zwarteveen & Rutgerd Boelens, 2014. "Defining, researching and struggling for water justice: some conceptual building blocks for research and action," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 143-158, March.
    3. Geels, Frank W., 2004. "From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6-7), pages 897-920, September.
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    5. Yaffa Truelove, 2021. "Who is the state? Infrastructural power and everyday water governance in Delhi," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(2), pages 282-299, March.
    6. Kathryn Furlong & Michelle Kooy, 2017. "Worlding Water Supply: Thinking Beyond the Network in Jakarta," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(6), pages 888-903, November.
    7. Furlong, Kathryn, 2014. "STS beyond the “modern infrastructure ideal”: Extending theory by engaging with infrastructure challenges in the South," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 139-147.
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    Cited by:

    1. Vishal Narain & Pranay Ranjan, 2024. "Belling the cat: Designing collective action institutions for natural resource management in the peri-urban interface," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(8), pages 1604-1614, June.

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