Water-supply programmes consist of three essential components: technology, people, and institutions. The interface of these facets determines whether a particular scheme is sustainable. This article highlights the differences in maintaining and operating water-supply systems in rural villages and rural market centres in Nepal. The analysis considers disparities between users’ willingness to pay based on data collected through surveys of 205 households and representatives of 12 water-user committees. Due to varying geographical locations and socioeconomic conditions among rural villages and rural market centers, core operation and maintenance problems for drinking water sustainability are immensely different. Weak institutional capacity is the prime obstacle in the provision of drinking water in the rural villages while technicalities such as insufficient water quality and inconvenient water-point locations are the major issues in the rural market centres. Moreover, levels of user satisfaction influence the operation and maintenance of both types of systems. This study considers user-satisfaction parameters and the overall influence of satisfaction on users’ willingness to pay.
