"This [making services cost effective] can only be done if water utilities are improved, services are paid for and, most importantly, we realise that distribution losses can at best be plugged by reducing the length of the pipeline itself. A city will be more efficient if it collects water locally, supplies it locally and disposes waste locally".

Sunita Narain, Director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in an editorial about urban growth models in India. According to Narain, urban services are not stretched because of subsidies for the poor but because they are not cost effective.

Source: Sunita Narain, Down to Earth, 15 Oct 2006

Tags: financing, water distribution