There is Hi-tech city and then the Genome valley, a wonderful new airport is underway Yet for 46 of every 48 hours, Hyderabad cannot deliver one simple staple to its people - water.
In truth, no city in India delivers water 24 hours a day. But none of the country's other major cities offers water for as little as two hours every other day, as Hyderabad does.
Those who have the means survive by storing water when it comes in rooftop tanks so their taps never run dry. Those who do not live life in 46-hour increments, rationing water and thronging taps at communal wells in lines that last two hours or more.Now, however, this city of 6 million is undertaking an experiment that could change how it and perhaps the rest of India - uses one of its most basic resources. It is a modest beginning: Hyderabad is offering continuously flowing water to one neighborhood. But the plan holds significance for the whole nation, as one of the world's most powerful economies struggles to meet increasing water demands amid chronic fraud, waste, and neglect.
Along the way, the project has, in many ways, become a parable for modern India, where the sheer immensity of its problems, combined with people's willingness to live with their own, imperfect solutions, creates an inertia against even the most necessary change.
This is one reason India finds itself in its current position. Water is often seen as an inalienable right, not a consumable resource. Moreover, fees don't cover the cost of operations, much less fixing and expanding the system to meet needs.
In truth, no city in India delivers water 24 hours a day. But none of the country's other major cities offers water for as little as two hours every other day, as Hyderabad does. The plan here is eventually to expand the pilot program throughout the city, making it the first major metropolis in India to offer continuously flowing water.
It is, on one hand, a matter of public health. Experts note that all pipes leak, whether they are in Berlin or Bangalore. If they are full, they leak outward, but if they are empty, they leak inward, sucking in polluted groundwater. This seepage contributes to the death of 2.1 million children annually due to a lack of clean drinking water, according to a United Nations report.
But there is also the hope that continuous water will force India to amend decades of mismanagement. After all, the problem here isn't supply: Hyderabad, for example, gets 42 gallons of water per person a day - more than Paris. The real questions facing India are those of decaying pipes and socialist-era policies that eschew water meters - making the commodity essentially free and leading to enormous waste.
The Hyderabad water board is already spending $1.6 million on the project, and Adikmet is perceived to be the easiest neighborhood in the city for 24-hour water. Officials hope the plan - and the 30,000 new water meters that came with it - will bring conservation, as residents are forced to account for their water usage. But some residents see the reverse.
"This 24-hour supply is not at all required," says a gray-bearded Ahmed Mohsin, a local resident. He points to water cascading down the street - the product of an unattended tap. "Nobody is going to close the tap," he declares.
To some degree, he is right. In Adikmet's poorer sections, water sometimes courses through the streets in a shoelace-high flood, serving as an open-air bath for clothes and children alike. But these areas can only afford to do this because they opted out of the 24-hour plan - and thus don't have water meters.
But the incident suggests the enormity of the problem both here and throughout India. Citizens will not abide higher bills, and Hyderabad can't fix every leaky elbow joint in Adikmet - let alone the rest of the city.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
