"Waiting for the Tanker"
A Qualitative Study on Water Scarcity, Daily Survival, and Gendered Labor in Kusumpur Pahari, Delhi
Abstract
This qualitative study examines how women, adolescent girls, and older women in Kusumpur Pahari, an urban slum in Delhi, manage chronic water insecurity under a fortnightly, tanker-dependent water supply. Using semi-structured interviews with 18 respondents across three age-based groups (six adult women, six adolescent girls, and six older women), the study explored how households organise water collection, storage, and rationing, and how this labour shapes women's physical health, emotional wellbeing, and daughters' education. Thematic analysis of the interview data produced twenty codes organised into six themes: water collection routines and household mobilisation; priority-based allocation and conservation; the gendered burden of water labour; physical health burden; emotional and psychological impact; and the need for structural solutions. Findings show that water insecurity functions less as an isolated resource shortage than as a structuring condition that reorganises household time, labour, and expectation around an unpredictable external supply, with women and girls bearing a disproportionate share of the physical, emotional, and educational costs. Adolescent girls described lost school time and constrained aspirations linked directly to water collection duties, while men's involvement remained occasional and largely confined to heavy lifting. The study extends existing, largely rural-focused literature on gendered water labour to an urban informal settlement minutes from some of Delhi's wealthiest neighbourhoods, arguing that progress toward SDG 6 in such settlements cannot be separated from the gender inequalities embedded in daily household water management.
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