Smart water? Corporate experiments and hybrid hydraulics in India

Abstract

Smart water refers to digital and commercialized water governance, largely implemented in India through private sector projects. These projects build on ideas of market efficiency to render complex political, social, and material arrangements bankable through a technological fix. The paper traces the rise of smart water in Indian policy before analyzing an expensive and controversial project in Delhi. Corporate and donor participation in the construction of a “smart water model” consolidated and extended previous frameworks for market actors and ideas in urban services, despite persistent challenges. However, these infrastructural imaginaries are ill-suited to the hybrid hydraulic systems of South Asian cities which blur state, market, and social infrastructure and governance arrangements. In smart water projects, beyond wealthy demonstration areas, service improvements are limited while data, capacity and revenue accrue to private sector actors. By misrecognizing these dynamics, technological solutions over-promise while increasing risk and inequality. Nationally, rising numbers of projects normalize the model (now planned for hundreds of cities), reshaping policy, and raising concerns over water access, equity, and democratic governance.