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Issue 4. August 2011 (For private circulation only) In this Issue Editorial . Towards a cleaner India: Case Studies: Open t gives me immense pleasure to present before you the fourth issue of Jaldarshan. In the last issue, we talked about the water supply scenario in Gujarat and Defecation-free Trichi City, Idiscussed the feasibility of 24x7 water supply to the residents. In the month of Public Toilets in Sangli Miraj June, UMC arranged a study tour for officials of four urban local bodies of Gujarat Kupwad to Malkapur Municipal Council of Maharashtra state. This town has successfully implemented 100 percent metering along with continuous water supply. You may . PAS Highlights: read about this initiative in ‘UMC Corner’ in this issue. Moving from Measurement This time we focus on sanitation, another area under tremendous pressure due to Improvement to rapid urbanization. The main story discusses the National Urban Sanitation Policy launched by the government of India in 2008. An overview of the recent . Tete-a-tete: Tilak Shastri analysis of the sanitation data of 2008-09 compiled under Performance Assessment System (PAS) project also points to the need for pushing the agenda of sanitation in . Leading Practices: the state. The PAS project is designed to effect improvement at the local govern- An integrated solution for ment level. Data of water and sanitation sectors in all the 166 Urban Local Bodies of Gujarat have been collected for last three years. The project is now ready to Solid Waste Management: move to its next phase i.e. performance improvement. A few cities have been Rajkot Municipal Corporation selected for improvement under PAS. Our technical teams will provide handholding support to these cities in bettering service delivery. This program will also provide . UMC corner: assistance to cities to plan their finances so as to sustain and undertake O&M of Study tour to 24x7 initiative the infrastructural improvements. of Malkapur city, Maharashtra Manvita Baradi . Film Review: Kagda Peeth Director, UMC . Useful Websites UMC, 3rd Floor, AUDA Building, Usmanpura, Ahmedabad-380 014 Telefax: 079-27546403/5303/1599 Email: [email protected] URL: www.umcasia.org 1 personnel protection equipment for Towards a Cleaner India safety of sanitation workers. Besides, (Excerpts from the 11th five year plan report of Government of India) municipal waste water and storm water drainage must be safely managed. Waste hile it is a known fact that villages are migrating towards cities, the most pertinent question is, “how well equipped are our cities to deal with the rapid water should be recycled, treated and urbanization?” Isher Judge Ahluwalia remarks in the High-Powered Expert reused for non-potable applications W wherever possible. Solid waste should Committee report on Indian urban that urbanization is not an option. It is an inevitable outcome of the faster rates of growth to which the economy has now transited. be collected and disposed of completely and safely. Basic services should be Sanitation standards of Indian cities are abysmal. The City Sanitation Survey by provided to the poor and the results Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Government of India, in the year 2010 should be sustained. Public health has has thrown up some harsh figures. 4,861 out of 5161 cities/towns in India do to be good and environmental standards not have even a partial sewerage network. Even in cities like Hyderabad and must be maintained. Bangalore, which are the most productive cities in the country, almost 50 per- Source: http://urbanindia.nic.in/ cent of the households are not connected to a centralized sewer network. Less programme/uwss/slb/SubNUSP.htm than 20 percent of the road network in urban India is covered by storm water drainage, while only 21 percent of the waste water generated is treated. Open defecation outside Somnath The 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12) by the Government of India has fixed the target Mahadev slum in Kheda for urban sanitation as 100 percent population coverage. Certain initiatives are required to be taken up to meet this target. Recycling and reuse of sewage post treatment for non-potable purposes should be encouraged. For dense urban neighbourhoods, decentralized waste water treatment systems could probably provide a cheaper alternative to large treatment plants. A detailed study could be made to look into such options while preparing sanitation plans for a particular area. Targeted subsidy may be made available to those living in slums on taking house service connections. Comprehensive storm water drainage system has to be provided in all cities and towns in order to avoid water logging during monsoon. A way has to be chalked out to provide sewerage facilities to unauthorized housing colonies without giving them a right to land by implication. Grey water released in the open in Gafurbasti slum of Kheda National Urban ensure and sustain good public health and environmental outcomes for all Sanitation Policy their citizens with special focus on The Government of India launched its hygienic and affordable sanitation National Urban Sanitation Policy (NUSP) facilities for the urban poor and women. in 2008. NUSP defines the vision for As per NUSP, a ‘totally sanitized city’ urban sanitation in India as having all must be open defecation-free and cities and towns totally sanitized, should have eliminated manual scaven- healthy and livable where local bodies ging. It should provide adequate There’s Hope… According to the HPEC report in 2011, about 18 percent of urban households do not have access to any form of latrine facilities and defecate in the open. Tiruchirapalli (Trichy), a temple town in Tamil Nadu with a population of 8.21 lakh (2009) has proved that improvement in public service delivery can be brought about by communities with help from the local government. Till the end of 1990s, the sanitation scenario of the city was no different from the rest of the country. Tiruchirapalli City Corporation (TCC), assisted by NGO Gramalaya and other civil society organizations, started focused interventions by collectivizing women, setting systems, constructing toilets A sanitation worker removes silt and solid waste from an open drain in Vankarvaas and creating awareness among its slum in Bavla. users. In 2002, India got its first 100 2 percent open defecation free slum in come under the Women’s Action for Sanitation for the Trichy. The city was ranked sixth in the Village Empowerment (WAVE), which is country in the sanitation ranking of a registered society. Monthly meetings Urban Poor Indian cities by MoUD in 2009-10, and held by WAVE facilitate cross learning, Even as the entire Maharashtra state was declared the first city to make all problem sharing among different CBOs. grapples with the issue of sanitation for its slums open defecation free. In the The women have proved that they the urban poor, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad Municipal Corporation (SMKMC) has taken the initiative for reforms in this area. As per the Census 2001, almost 15 percent of the city’s half million population resides in slums that lack access to basic infrastructure and civic amenities. In 2004, Shelter Associates (SA), a Pune-based NGO working with the urban poor, and SMKMC launched a project to build individual toilets for six slums in the Sangli-Miraj area. GIS mapping was undertaken with the help of slum dwellers to identify slums where individual toilets could be set up. The basis for such a survey was that slums need to be considered spatially, both internally and in relation to the rest of the city. Toilets were designed based on the needs of the A child-friendly toilet in Trichy residents, with space for a footpath through the slums and individual toilets outside each home. (Hindustan Women of Sengulathan Koil Street Times, Jan 24, 2010). The community were all smiles after their slum was and the local government too were completely freed of open defecation completely involved in this initiative. This dedicated involvement led to the success of the initiative. The Central and State Governments have been making efforts in the form A member of WAVE interacts with a of mobilization of funds under various slum-dweller programs. However, desired targets are yet to be achieved. The HPEC report past two years, 1783 individual toilets understand the logistics of managing points out that the urban local bodies were constructed. There are a total of and maintaining the toilets. The men must have sufficient skill sets to design, 20 pay-and-use public toilets (12 had resisted the community toilets develop and manage projects and assets managed by private sector and eight initially, but after seeing its success being created. The JNNURM has by TCC) and 347 community toilets of in making the slums clean, they too allocated 5 percent of project funding which 175 are pay-and-use and 172 are joined the initiative. Following this, for capacity building, but ULBs have free (TCC-managed). There are also Association for Water, Sanitation and made little demand to undertake training. special child friendly toilets within Hygiene (AWASH) was established, There is a need to share success stories these toilet complexes. where men too could be members. and models of leading practices. As the Together, WAVE and AWASH are The pay-and-use toilets are managed success stories of Trichy and Sangli-Miraj- working continuously towards ensuring by CBOs that have been set up. The Kupwad reflect, it is the combined sustainability of the project even when money collected from these toilets efforts of the local government, residents Gramalaya withdraws its activities. is used to cover electricity expenses, and other agencies that eventually reap Photo Courtesy: Gramalaya payment of salaries of staff at these benefits for the society.