Description
The paper delves into how global cities or world-class cities have been imagined in the Global South. Such aspirations have urged many cities to better integrate with the world economy and pushed many service delivery institutions (SDIs) to embrace market-friendly reforms. In the context of water supply, SDIs have neatly balanced the need for efficient market-friendly reforms and implementing populist schemes crucial for re-election of incumbent governments. However, a sizeable portion of the working class such as migrant labourers typically remain outside such a framework. This was seen most clearly during the COVID-19 pandemic and the national lockdown that followed when water - for washing, cleaning, or drinking, was not accessible to thousands of people. With raging inequalities along status, caste, and class, this paper outlines how SDIs (in)directly reproduce inequalities and identities. Such imaginings have deep repercussions for the 21st-century globalized world.
