Changes

The principle that users should pay for recurrent costs has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, specifically for the rural sector in many countries. In the urban context, users use to pay through regularised billing in many cases. However, tariffs are often set too low (sometimes for political reasons) and generally do not cover the true costs of system replacement over the long-term.

<ref>http://www.wsp.org/publications/sa_indiapoor.pdf</ref> However, most urban and rural schemes in India survive on large operating subsidies. <ref>http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/Resources/Bridging_the_Gap_Exec_Sum.pdf</ref>.