Willingness to pay for drinking water supply in Vavuniya UC area

Abstract

This study covered Vavuniya Urban Council area, which includes eight (08) Gramasevager divisions and eleven wards. About 75,000 residents live in this UC area. The current water treatment facilities were built when there were a more than 20,000 families living here. The fifteen fold increase in population during last decade has made access to water a major public health concern. Families that can afford to buy bottled water do and those that cannot are susceptible to water borne disease at illness at an ever increasing rate. With this background, the aim of this study was to get an insight a present issue while estimating WTP for improved water service. Eight GS divisions within the UC limit were selected 50 households as sample sites, collecting information on current water needs, health concerns, household socio economic characteristics, and from a contingent valuation (CV) experiment, how much they would pay for access to improve water service in the home. Only 26%of households surveyed currently have a water meter. And the maximum that any house hold pays for water service is 1140/-. Eighty six percentage households are report buying water. Many household have private wells. Households‘ purching water outside the home has average expenditures of 705 Rs per month with the highest reporting 2400Rs per month. Further, willing to pay more for an improved water supply in vavuniya UC area showed that domestic consumers‘ willingness to pay more for an improved service was influenced by age of the head of the household, head of the house hold, household income, work, home owner, Education, and Payment of the water. Finally a conclusion can be derived that, in the urban area public willingness to pay of household a considerable attention for many factors when improved water service in vavuniya UC area.