Is it likely that infrastructure, with all its stored potential resources, will also entail
a similar a similar problem that mankind finds difficult to solve?
7.8.3 Water Matters
The “public” according to Weintraub and Kumar (I997) is used as a term in social
theory and politics to identify:
1. public goods (juxtaposed against those distributed by the market economy),
2. as a political community distinct from markets and the state,
3. as a type of social relationship between strangers that mediates between the
bureaucratic public realm and the space of the home, and
4. a gendered category that demarcates a split between the family/household/oikos
(as private) and a larger political order that is public.
These categories are helpful in noting the appearances of public water in Mumbai.
In Mumbai, water is a public good (see also discussion in Chap. 17) distributed by a
public agency - the Mumbai’s water-supply department. As news related to water
shortages regularly appears in the city’s newspapers, the city’s water is also creative
of a political community - a municipal public sphere that comprises both scarcity
apprehensions and reservations about outsiders and immigrants.
Mumbai’s hydraulic infrastructure has increased gradually over the last
150 years, and today it is the sixth largest in the world. Over 7000 city employees
distribute nearly 3.5 billion litres of water daily to 12 million people (nearly 300 litres
per person) through more than 4000 km of pipes. Their work generates handsome
revenues exceeding costs for the city. However, although the city’s water department
is brimful with funds, maintenance and repair works contracts, and even water, the
city’s hydraulic network does not dispense water continuously to individuated
households over 24 h daily. Rather, water is distributed, according to a roster, only
to “co-operative housing societies”. Most housing societies - in slums and high-rise
buildings alike – will get water for 2–3 h daily, and then use various technologies to
collect this water during the supply hours for later distribution among their members.
Between 2003 and 2009, consultants tried to transform and improve the distribution regime in one ward of the city, from an intermittent system of scheduled
supply into a 24/7 water supply. The attempted conversion would:
1. change water distribution rationing for quantities on a supply schedule to water
distribution regulated by price.
2. to shift the responsibility of rationing from the municipal engineers to water
meters with “rational” tariff charges. These changes, assured the consultants,
would ensure a more efficient and equitable distribution of water. This proposal
failed dramatically in 2008 for several reasons, including:
7.8 Social Aspects of Infrastructure
203
a similar a similar problem that mankind finds difficult to solve?
7.8.3 Water Matters
The “public” according to Weintraub and Kumar (I997) is used as a term in social
theory and politics to identify:
1. public goods (juxtaposed against those distributed by the market economy),
2. as a political community distinct from markets and the state,
3. as a type of social relationship between strangers that mediates between the
bureaucratic public realm and the space of the home, and
4. a gendered category that demarcates a split between the family/household/oikos
(as private) and a larger political order that is public.
These categories are helpful in noting the appearances of public water in Mumbai.
In Mumbai, water is a public good (see also discussion in Chap. 17) distributed by a
public agency - the Mumbai’s water-supply department. As news related to water
shortages regularly appears in the city’s newspapers, the city’s water is also creative
of a political community - a municipal public sphere that comprises both scarcity
apprehensions and reservations about outsiders and immigrants.
Mumbai’s hydraulic infrastructure has increased gradually over the last
150 years, and today it is the sixth largest in the world. Over 7000 city employees
distribute nearly 3.5 billion litres of water daily to 12 million people (nearly 300 litres
per person) through more than 4000 km of pipes. Their work generates handsome
revenues exceeding costs for the city. However, although the city’s water department
is brimful with funds, maintenance and repair works contracts, and even water, the
city’s hydraulic network does not dispense water continuously to individuated
households over 24 h daily. Rather, water is distributed, according to a roster, only
to “co-operative housing societies”. Most housing societies - in slums and high-rise
buildings alike – will get water for 2–3 h daily, and then use various technologies to
collect this water during the supply hours for later distribution among their members.
Between 2003 and 2009, consultants tried to transform and improve the distribution regime in one ward of the city, from an intermittent system of scheduled
supply into a 24/7 water supply. The attempted conversion would:
1. change water distribution rationing for quantities on a supply schedule to water
distribution regulated by price.
2. to shift the responsibility of rationing from the municipal engineers to water
meters with “rational” tariff charges. These changes, assured the consultants,
would ensure a more efficient and equitable distribution of water. This proposal
failed dramatically in 2008 for several reasons, including:
7.8 Social Aspects of Infrastructure
203