Centralised piped water supply is a key technology for supplying water in many Indian cities, including Kolkata and Chennai. A closer examination of water consumption patterns in these cities reveals that households across classes routinely access water from alternative sources, such as packaged drinking water and groundwater. The dependency on these alternatives is comparable to CPWS, and hence, these alternatives can neither be ignored nor replaced. Therefore, it is imperative for decision makers to go beyond the model of CPWS and explore other context-specific, non-networked strategies of service delivery to ensure access to safe water for all.