Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.

In many Indian cities the piped supply is not safe to drink as it arrives. Households that can afford it have responded by buying filters, or bottled water, or both, and the market for these has grown quickly. Those who cannot afford them boil what they can and drink the rest as it comes. The result is that the cost of unsafe water has been shifted onto households, and most heavily onto the households least able to carry it, while the network that made the water unsafe (ageing pipes, intermittent pressure that draws in contamination, treatment that stops well short of the tap) is left much as it was. Every rupee spent at the point of use is a rupee that does not fix the supply.

Which one of the following statements best reflects the crux of the passage?