The recent Census of India (2011) throws some very interesting facts on the process of urbanisation in India. For the first time since Independence in 1947, the absolute increase in population is more in urban than in rural areas. The level of urbanization increased from 27.81% in 2001 to 31.16% in 2011 and the proportion of rural population declined from 72.19 per cent in 2001 to 68.84 per cent in 2011. With the increase in urban areas, there is a pressure on basic infrastructure including access to water for both urban and periurban locations. Most Indian cities have formal water supply only for few hours a day and only in limited areas. The big question is where are the rest of the water requirements coming from? For much of India’s ‘water history’, the focus has been on large scale surface water projects to provide access focusing more on irrigation and neglecting sources within the city and in the periurban areas. Over time an enormous informal groundwater market has arisen in several cities to bridge the demand-supply gap. This water demand, therefore, is met through supplies of water through informal water markets. Water is sourced from the periurban regions which are usually richer in surface and groundwater. This paper focuses on the change process as witnessed by periurban areas with a case study of the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Due to a large influx of population mainly due to expansion of the city as an Information Technology (IT) hub, the periurban areas have been losing out on water access to the more powerful urban population with high paying capacity.
This paper presents an overview of a trend that is leading to immense water insecurities due to a combination of issues – urban growth induced water scarcity; myopic planning that is not based on available environmental resources; lack of recognition of community water rights and lack of regulation for the protection of diminishing surface water resources.