Households’ Willingness to Pay for Improved Water Supply System in the Dryland areas of West Bengal — An estimation using Double-Bounded Dichotomous-Choice Model

This study used double-bounded dichotomous-choice to estimate and analyze the factors affecting households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for water supply in the dryland areas of West Bengal as well as improvement in the existing water bodies. This study notes that although the households living in the four districts of drylands of West Bengal are very poor financially, majority of them have willingness to accept the higher bid in the double-bounded bidding process. It shows the importance as well as necessity of good water system, as a whole, to them, which could solve manifold problems. Pilot survey as well as final survey were conducted in the three districts of dryland area of West Bengal on 450 households and bids were set in such a manner which could be bearable for the people of these areas. Over 65% were willing to participate in the improvement of the water supply system in the area. Those who were “protest bidders”, showed socio-economic reasons for their decisions. We have followed the procedure suggested by NOAA (1993) panel for applying the CVM with full randomness being taken care of in the different stages of survey. What we have found is that apart from the amount of bid, several socio-economic variables play a part in people’s decision on selection of a bid.

The paper makes application of Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice CVM in the Drylands of West Bengal, which is unique itself.

The paper focuses on improvement of all forms of Water Supply System in the dryland areas of West Bengal.

All three districts of dryland areas of West Bengal have been covered by this study through primary field survey.

Households’ Willingness to Pay for Improved Water Supply System in the Dryland areas of West Bengal — an estimation using Double-Bounded Dichotomous-Choice Model