Abstract
Governments in developing countries face financial constraints to ensure supply of clean drinking water. They may benefit from increasing water charges for those who are be willing to pay little extra in lieu of their demand for improvement in water quality and service. To check the plausibility of this proposal, we investigated drinking water supply and quality, and welloff consumers demand for improved service delivery in Shah-Rukun-e-alam and Mumtazabad towns in Multan city of Pakistan. Qualitative data obtained through a questionnaire survey was analyzed using descriptive and regression techniques. Qualitative information obtained through semi structured interviews was helpful in designing survey questionnaire and to elaborate quantitative results. Results reveal that the respondents accord high importance to the provision of safe drinking water than to other daily household needs. The demand for improvement in water supply parameters exceeds the demand for improvements in water quality parameters, with the reliable supply being the most demanded improvement. Majority realize the government’s budget constraints in improving service delivery. Most respondents would pay PKR 100 in addition to what they are paying now. Their willingness to pay (WTP) this amount correlates with their awareness on water and health nexus, and depends household income, number of children under 14 years age and awareness of actual water quality tested through laboratory. Besides recommending raise of water charges by PKR 100 per month per household in both towns, the service quality improvement may consider interventions such as mobile water testing laboratory and awareness campaigns motivate citizens to pay for safe drinking water.
Highlights
Water is one of the fundamentals for human survival on the earth
Before going into further details, it is important to be confident about the economic underpinning of the willingness to pay (WTP) data as a meaningful figure representing preferences and that these represent a meaningful proxy of the market value
The respondents ranked the services which affect their everyday living such as Safe drinking water, hospital, Solid waste and sanitation services higher than others like the recreational facilities such as parks and playground, comfort and amusement including paved streets and streetlights (Table 2)
Summary
Safe drinking water for human consumption has been an enduring challenge for development policy and practice in developing countries. Against a three-fold increase in global population, a six-fold growth in human water consumption has been observed (Cosgrove & Rijsberman, 2000). Almost one billion people still aspire for safe drinking water. Every year nearly 3.4 million die due to waterborne diseases (WHO, 2001). These deaths have been resulting partly from intake of water contaminated with viruses, bacteria and parasites (Hussainy, 2007). Most these deaths can be prevented through better and improved water services. For instance trachoma disease (leading cause of preventable blindness) does not exist in the areas where the basis services of water supply, sanitation and hygiene are available (WHO, 2001)
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