The impact of a pilot water metering project in an Indian city on users’ perception of the public water supply

Purpose – This article concerns a developmental experience in the water sector, namely the introduction of water metering in an Indian city, in the framework of a French water company’s technical assistance to the local public water authority. We address the impact of the introduction of the water meter, an object that crystallizes a symbolic part of the management model of the French company, on the local water supply context and socio-political environment, focusing in particular on how trust between the users and the service providers is reconfigured. Methodology – The methodology consisted of an exploratory field survey with 37 households in the pilot water metering area. Findings – The water meter is an artefact highlighting users' perception of water and society. The user reinterprets its function, mainly perceiving it as a tool to monitor the consumption of water, dissociated from the dimension of payment. As soon as the issue of payment based on consumption comes into the picture, then the trust the user has developed in the private foreign company is displaced towards the public authority