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Paper short abstract:

Generally speaking, crisis is assumed to be a one-time thing that shall pass. It is not seen as something that gets ingrained in the everyday life of people. In my study, however, the opposite holds true which leads me to the question the nature of crisis: is it sudden and unplanned or manufactured?

Paper long abstract:

Water is a quintessential resource necessary for human survival and well being. The state entitled with the duty and responsibility to take care of its citizen, must as part of this responsibility, ensure that clean water is made available to all its citizens. The present Delhi government came to power on the mandate that it will provide free water to all its residents and flaunts that it has been successful in doing so to a large extent. However this officially accepted dictum comes into abeyance when one looks at the urban informal settlements of Delhi. Careful field observations and semi-structured interviews with long term residents of these clusters (my case study is of Rangpuri Pahadi, Delhi) makes one wonder at the constancy of the water crisis in these areas. This is because, infrastructurally speaking, no pipelines have been laid down and Rangpuri Pahadi is served with either tankers or borewell water. The people confront water crisis as an everyday reality that only gets exacerbated in the summer months. Visual storyboards as a methodological tool offers great insights to capture this crisis as is experienced by different social groups and the adaptation and mitigation strategies adopted by them to deal with the same. An immersion into the field enables one with the contextual understanding and sensitivity to make sense of these actions or inactions and thereby juxtapose them against discourses of development.