Water Pricing, Affordability and Public Choice: An Economic Assessment from a Large Indian Metropolis (original) (raw)

The study performs a focalized study on urban development, sustainable urban planning and the positive impact of the households' willingness to pay (WTP) information for Quality Drinking Water Services (QDWS) for better planning in urban Pesha-war, Pakistan. Quality drinking water problem exist almost every developing country. However, in the process of rapid urbanization and urban sprawl, researcher have focused merely on the physical infrastructure of the city development and ignored the importance of evidence based planning altogether. In this study data was collected from 45 urban council using Contingent Valuation (CV) survey Method. Bid wise Logit Model was used to analyze the impact of each regressor in the model. Results shows that most of the households (96.8) avail municipal services, WSSP serve 89.8%, Cantonment Board 7% and 3% have their own arrangements. Mainstream (88.5%) are not satisfied and are WTP, PKR 278/month for QDWS. Result of the Logit Model reveals that respondents' income, education and housing occupancy status are significant variables and have positive impact whereas size of household has a negative impact on the WTP for QDWS. For better policy and sustainable planning this study suggest CV survey to elicit households' WTP for QDWS. This information will not only generate more revenue , mitigate deadweight loss of the company but also create a sense of ownership among the people to cover the loophole between the planners and end-users.