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India has expanded rural tap-water connections at an unprecedented scale under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
New analysis of NFHS-5 data suggests that piped-water access and reliable water supply are not always the same thing.
Several districts with high piped-water coverage also report frequent disruptions, pointing to the rise of “reliability poverty”.
As climate variability, groundwater stress and demand increase, India’s next water challenge is to ensure that taps deliver water regularly, safely and dependably.
Spatial association between piped-water access and water disruption. Districts in red indicate areas where high piped-water coverage coexists with high levels of water disruption.For decades, India’s drinking-water challenge appeared straightforward. Millions of households lacked access to safe water within their homes and depended on hand pumps, wells, public standposts and distant sources. Women and children often spent hours each day collecting water, particularly in rural and drought-prone regions.
Recognising this burden, successive governments invested heavily in drinking-water infrastructure, culminating in the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in 2019.
The results have been remarkable. Within a few years, rural tap-water coverage expanded dramatically, making the JJM one of the largest drinking-water infrastructure programmes in the world. Millions of households that had never previously had a water connection now have taps installed inside their homes.
Yet beneath this success story lies an uncomfortable question: does a tap connection necessarily guarantee reliable access to water?
In a university town on Karnataka’s Deccan Plateau, students sometimes spend two or three consecutive days without water despite living in hostels connected to a piped-water network. Water is supplied from a reservoir through an established distribution system, yet interruptions occur whenever storage levels decline or pumping operations are disrupted. The problem is not the absence of infrastructure; it is the reliability of the system that sustains it.
This experience is not unique. Across India, households are becoming increasingly dependent on centralised water systems whose performance is shaped by reservoir levels, groundwater availability, electricity supply, treatment capacity and distribution networks. As climate variability intensifies and water demand grows, the challenge confronting India’s water sector is no longer simply one of access. Increasingly, it is a question of reliability.
The success of India's drinking-water programmes is commonly measured by the number of connections installed. But for households, water security is measured differently. The critical question is not whether a tap exists. It is whether water flows when the tap is opened.
The experience of intermittent water supply in Karnataka raises a broader question. Are such disruptions isolated incidents, or do they reflect a larger pattern emerging across India?
To explore this question, I examined district-level data from the National Family Health Survey-5, which, for the first time, allows an assessment of household experiences with disruptions in drinking-water supply. The survey asked households whether their primary source of drinking water had been unavailable for at least one full day during the two weeks preceding the survey.
The results reveal a striking and counterintuitive pattern. Districts with greater access to piped-water systems were often more likely to report water disruptions. The finding challenges a deeply held assumption in water policy: that expanding infrastructure automatically translates into reliable access.
The disruptions were also far from randomly distributed. Instead, they showed clear geographical clustering. Significant hotspots emerged across western India, Rajasthan, parts of the Western Ghats, selected Himalayan districts and the Northeast. In contrast, large clusters of relatively low disruption were concentrated across parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain and eastern India.
Spatial statistical analysis confirms this pattern. The Global Moran’s I value for water disruption was 0.614 (p < 0.001), indicating a strong tendency for districts with high levels of disruption to be located near other districts facing similar challenges. Such clustering suggests that regional environmental conditions, infrastructure characteristics and water-governance systems may play an important role in shaping household experiences of water reliability.
The analysis uses district-level data from NFHS-5, conducted in 2019-21, India’s largest household survey. Water disruption refers to households reporting that their primary drinking-water source was unavailable for at least one full day during the two weeks preceding the survey. Spatial clustering was assessed using Moran’s I statistics and Local Indicators of Spatial Association.
Even more striking was the relationship between piped-water access and disruption. Bivariate spatial analysis revealed a significant overlap between districts with high levels of piped-water coverage and districts experiencing frequent water interruptions. Several hotspot clusters were concentrated across western India, the Western Ghats, Rajasthan, parts of the Himalayan region and the Northeast.
The distinction between access and reliability is increasingly visible on the ground. Reporting from Uttar Pradesh has documented villages where households have tap-water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission but continue to struggle with irregular or inadequate supply. In Baghpat district, residents reported that the existence of infrastructure did not necessarily translate into dependable access to water.
Such experiences suggest that the presence of a tap connection and the availability of water are not always synonymous. They also reinforce an important message emerging from the NFHS-5 analysis: infrastructure coverage and service reliability may represent distinct dimensions of water security.
At first glance, the relationship between piped-water access and water disruption appears paradoxical. Conventional wisdom assumes that expanding infrastructure should improve reliability. Yet the NFHS-5 analysis suggests a more complex reality.
Unlike households dependent on local wells or hand pumps, those connected to centralised networks rely on reservoirs, treatment plants, pumping stations, electricity and distribution systems. Failures at any point can affect thousands of households simultaneously.
The finding does not imply that piped water causes disruption. Rather, it suggests that access and reliability are distinct dimensions of water security and should be measured separately.
The emerging geography of water disruption cannot be understood through infrastructure alone. Climate variability is increasingly reshaping the conditions under which water systems operate.
Heatwaves raise demand precisely when water resources are under stress. Erratic rainfall, droughts and floods place pressure on reservoirs, groundwater and supply networks. Several disruption hotspots identified through NFHS-5 overlap with regions experiencing climatic extremes.
Although the analysis does not establish causality, climate change appears to be acting as a stress multiplier, exposing vulnerabilities in water systems that may previously have remained hidden.
Karnataka’s 2024 water crisis illustrates the distinction between infrastructure and reliability. Despite extensive network coverage, Bengaluru residents faced water rationing, expensive tanker dependence and growing uncertainty over supply.
Weak monsoon conditions, declining groundwater reserves and pressure on reservoir systems disrupted service delivery months before peak summer demand. The crisis demonstrated that a household may possess a tap connection yet remain water insecure when the systems supporting that connection come under stress.
As dependence on centralised networks increases, water insecurity increasingly reflects system vulnerability rather than a simple lack of infrastructure.
Rajasthan and Gujarat reveal another dimension of the reliability challenge. Over decades, governments have invested heavily in dams, canals, groundwater schemes and inter-basin transfer projects to improve water access. Yet many districts continue to face chronic water stress.
Rajasthan’s persistent groundwater depletion and the continued vulnerability of drought-prone areas in Gujarat suggest that infrastructure alone cannot overcome ecological constraints. These regions show that reliable water supply ultimately depends not only on engineering solutions but also on the long-term sustainability of the resources on which those systems depend.
The Northeast challenges the assumption that abundant rainfall guarantees water security. In 2025, Aizawl experienced severe drinking-water disruptions despite being located in one of India’s wettest regions.
Power failures, pipeline repairs and increased river turbidity interrupted supply to thousands of households dependent on the Greater Aizawl Water Supply Scheme.
The episode highlights a critical distinction between water availability and water accessibility. Water may exist in abundance, but households remain vulnerable when treatment facilities, pumping stations, electricity supply or distribution networks fail.
Reliability depends as much on infrastructure performance as on resource availability.
The Jal Jeevan Mission has transformed rural drinking-water access at an unprecedented scale. Millions of households now have tap connections that did not exist a few years ago. The mission’s own vision goes beyond infrastructure creation. It envisages a future in which every rural household has drinking water supply in adequate quantity, of prescribed quality, on a regular and long-term basis.
The emphasis on regular and long-term supply is significant because it shifts attention from the installation of connections to the reliability of service delivery itself.
Yet the evidence presented here suggests that the next challenge may be reliability rather than connectivity. Official metrics primarily track coverage, but households experience water security through continuity and dependability of supply.
As climate variability intensifies and dependence on centralised systems grows, future success may increasingly depend on whether infrastructure remains functional, resilient and capable of delivering water throughout the year.
India’s water debate has long focused on access poverty — the absence of safe and convenient water sources. The findings presented here point towards an emerging challenge: reliability poverty.
A household may possess a tap connection yet experience intermittent supply because of declining water resources, infrastructure failures, electricity disruptions or climatic stress. In such cases, infrastructure exists but dependable service does not.
As centralised water systems expand across India, reliability poverty may become an increasingly important dimension of water insecurity, requiring policy attention beyond traditional measures of infrastructure coverage.
India's water transition is entering a new phase. Expanding access remains essential, but future policy must place equal emphasis on reliability.
Monitoring frameworks should move beyond counting connections and incorporate indicators of continuity, functionality, resilience and source sustainability. Investments in climate adaptation, groundwater recharge, watershed restoration and system maintenance will be as important as infrastructure expansion.
The central lesson emerging from this analysis is simple: the success of water policy should not be judged solely by the presence of a tap, but by whether water continues to flow when households need it most.
India’s drinking-water story is often told through numbers: households connected, villages covered and pipelines laid. These achievements deserve recognition. The Jal Jeevan Mission has expanded access at a scale few countries have attempted.
Yet the evidence presented here suggests that the next chapter of India’s water story may not be about access alone, but about reliability.
The NFHS-5 analysis reveals a paradox at the heart of contemporary water policy. In several regions, districts with greater dependence on piped-water systems continue to experience disruptions in supply.
From Bengaluru’s reservoir-linked shortages and groundwater stress in western India to supply failures in rain-abundant Mizoram, a common lesson emerges: infrastructure can expand access, but it does not automatically guarantee dependable service.
This challenge is not external to the vision of the Jal Jeevan Mission. The programme itself seeks to ensure that every rural household receives drinking water in adequate quantity, of prescribed quality, on a regular and long-term basis. The emphasis on regular and long-term supply is significant because it shifts attention from the creation of infrastructure to the performance of infrastructure.
As climate variability intensifies, groundwater reserves come under increasing pressure and demand for water continues to grow, the question confronting India is no longer simply how to connect households to water systems. It is how to ensure that those systems remain functional, resilient and sustainable over time.
The challenge, in other words, is moving from infrastructure provision to service assurance.
India has already demonstrated that it can build water infrastructure at an unprecedented scale. The larger test now is whether it can build institutions and systems capable of delivering water reliably under increasingly uncertain environmental conditions.
The promise of Har Ghar Jal will ultimately be judged not by the number of taps installed, but by whether water continues to flow when people need it most.
Anurag Yadav is Doctoral Research Scholar at the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj; and Anoop Yadav is Doctoral Research Scholar at the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth