Urban sanitation- slum improvement and housing for the poor
Sophia Badsha
Urban sanitation
sanitation is defined as safe disposal of human excreta including its safe
confinement treatment disposal and associated hygiene practices. Sanitation is
also depend on other elements like environmental sanitation along with the
management of drinking water supply
Sanitation in India is becoming more and more problematic . There are so many
attributable factors responsible for this situation . Sanitation it self is in
crisis ,its not only in India this is through out the world . 2.6 billion people
worldwide - 40% of the world's population - do not have a toilet. Yet, despite
the fact that 5,000 children die every day from diarrhoeal diseases, there has
been no political action on the issue2.the millennium development goals clearly
stated the importance of water and sanitation the fact is water and sanitation is
the most neglected and most off-track of the UN millennium development
goals2. Developing countries like India and sub Saharan African countries the
cost of not investing in sanitation and water are huge - infant deaths, lost work
days, and missed school are estimated to have an economic cost of around $38
billion per year, with sanitation accounting for 92% of this value3. In the world
for every 15 seconds a child was dyeing of water related diseases.
What is the situation in India?
India stands second place amongst the worst places in the world for sanitation5
• Around 40 million people reside in slums, without adequate water and
sanitation
• India will have 41% of its population living in cities and towns by 2030 i.e.
over 575 million people from present 286 million. But they can't have water
and sanitation till we recognize their existence.
27.8% of Indians, i.e. 286 million people or 55 million households live in urban
areas - projections indicate that the urban population would have grown to
331 million people by 2007 and to 368 million by 2012. 12.04 million (7.87 %)
Urban households do not have access to latrines and defecate in the open. 5.48
million (8.13%) Urban households use community latrines and 13.4 million
households (19.49%) use shared latrines. 12.47 million (18.5%) households do
not have access to a drainage network. 26.83 million (39.8%) households are
connected to open drains. The status in respect of the urban poor is even worse.
The overall sanitation coverage in India in 2005-2006 is 44.6% . The rural
sanitation is 26% and urban sanitation is 84.6% only .however field studies
shown that very low usage of latrines in both rural and urban areas . 74% of
people in rural India still don't have a toilet and in urban it is 16%7. There is a
gradual change in sanitation coverage in India and the trend is increasing over
the past two decades . But if it will take place in the same pace it may take
another 200 years to get a toilet for every Indian.
The real situation may even worse than the above facts. Water and sanitation are
basic amenities and responsibility of the government.
Factors that are responsible for poor sanitation in India
India is a unique country with different geographic and climatic conditions. This
is the major factor to impact any decision or policy implementation at central
level.
India is urbanizing very fast and along with this, the slum population is also
increasing. India's urban population is increasing at a faster rate than its total
population. With over 575 million people, India will have 41% of its population
living in cities and towns by 2030 AD from the present level of 286 million and
28%. However, most of them are not having basic facilities like drinking water
and sanitation. Among the urban poor, the slum dwellers are the poorest. The
very definition of slums points at acute drinking water and sanitation crisis for
the slum dwellers. Slum in India is defined as a cluster inside urban areas
without having water and sanitation access. Slum population is constantly
increasing: it has doubled in the past two decades. The current population living
in slums in the country is more than the population of Britain. India's slum-
dwelling population rose from 27.9 million in 1981 to over 40 million in 2001.
As per the 2001 census of India, 640 towns spread over 26 states and union
territories have reported existence of slums. This means one out of every four
persons reside in slums in our cities and towns. The NSSO survey in 2002 has
identified 51688 slums in urban areas of which 50.6% of urban slums have been
declared as "notified slums". This growing slum population and the lack of
basic facilities will badly impact on India's overall target achievement in water
and sanitation sector4 in view of the above situation Govt. of India had
launched The National sanitation policy .
The specific goals of the policy were
• Awareness Generation and Behaviour Change
• Open Defecation Free Cities
• Integrated City-Wide Sanitation
Key Sanitation Policy Issues
In order to achieve the above Vision, following key policy issues must be
addressed:
• Poor Awareness: Sanitation has been accorded low priority and there is poor
awareness about its inherent linkages with public health.
• Social and Occupational aspects of Sanitation: Despite the appropriate legal
framework, progress towards the elimination of manual scavenging has shown
limited success, Little or no attention has been paid towards the occupational
hazard faced by sanitation workers daily.
• Fragmented Institutional Roles and Responsibilities: There are considerable
gaps and overlaps in institutional roles and responsibilities at the national,
state, and city levels. Lack of an Integrated City-wide Approach: Sanitation
investments are currently planned in a piece-meal manner and do not take into
account the full cycle of safe confinement, treatment and safe disposal.
• Limited Technology Choices: Technologies have been focused on limited
options that have not been cost-effective, and sustainability of investments
has been in question.
• Reaching the UN-served and Poor: Urban poor communities as well other
residents of informal settlements have been constrained by lack of tenure, space
or economic constraints, in obtaining affordable access to safe sanitation. In
this context, the issues of whether services to the poor should be individualized
and whether community services should be provided in non notified slums
should be addressed. However provision of individual toilets should be
prioritized. In relation to "Pay and Use" toilets, the issue of subsidies
inadvertently reaching the non-poor should be addressed by identifying
different categories of urban poor.
• Lack of Demand Responsiveness: Sanitation has been provided by public
agencies in a supply- driven manner, with little regard for demands and
preferences of households as customers of sanitation services.
March 23, 2011
Water woes- The Hindu
Despite rapid technological progress and economic growth, close to 900 million
people the world over do not use drinking water from improved sources and
over 2.6 billion lack access to decent sanitation facilities. This indefensible
public failing, which is conspicuous in the developing world, comes with
tremendous economic and social costs. Safe drinking water and basic sanitation,
as United Nations organisations have often emphasised, help prevent water-
related diseases. Specifically when it comes to diarrhoea, which kills 1.6 million
annually, improved water supply reduces morbidity by 20 per cent while
improved sanitation cuts it by 37.5 per cent. The indirect benefits of providing
access to drinking water to households, such as the time saved by women and
children — who are often carriers of this precious commodity from source —
are reflected, for example, in better school attendance. The debilitating effect of
the lack of sanitation facilities is seldom appreciated. A World Bank study
placed the total economic impact of inadequate sanitation in India at Rs.2.44
trillion (6.4 per cent of India's GDP in 2006). Three ongoing UN initiatives
spotlight the importance of water and sanitation: the Millennium Development
Goals, the Water for Life Decade (2005-2015), and the annual World Water
Day (March 22) which had “Water for Cities” as the theme this year.
India, its urban areas included, is a laggard, especially in sanitation. More than
37 per cent of urban India's human excreta is unsafely disposed of, posing
significant health hazards. The country is also home to the world's largest
number of persons who defecate in the open (665 million persons of a global
total of 1.1 billion). Shockingly, 4,66,853 elementary schools did not have toilet
facilities, going by the data for 2009. The crisis looming over urban India is best
revealed by a central government survey between December 2009 and March
2010. In this exercise, which ranked the 423 class-I cities according to metrics
set by the National Urban Sanitation Policy, not a single one was eligible to be
in the top slot of a “green city” (which needed to score at least 90 per cent) and
only four were “blue cities” (67 per cent to 90 per cent). With 189 cities
categorised as “red” (less than 33 per cent), and the remaining 230 in the
“black” zone, it is evident that India has a long way to go in providing this basic
infrastructure, which not only offers minimum dignity to life but is the
elementary requirement for a healthy society. High economic growth rates, even
if they are sustained, do not such a society make.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, March 1, 2012
318 houses for the urban poor
Urban Affairs Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty on Wednesday inaugurated the
Kalladimukham slum improvement project of the City Corporation, being
implemented under the Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme.
Mayor K. Chandrika presided over the function. V. Sivankutty, MLA, was the
chief guest. Deputy Mayor G. Happykumar; Corporation standing committee
chairpersons Shajida Nasser, Palayam Rajan, V.S. Padmakumar, S.
Pushpalatha, Vanaja Rajendrababu and P. Shyamkumar; United Democratic
Front leader in the council Johnson Joseph; and BJP leader Ashok Kumar were
present.
In two phases
As many as 318 housing units would be constructed under the Rs.10.5-
crore project, in two phases. The project will be implemented by
COSTFORD.
Of the total housing units, 105 are for families belonging to Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes categories, and 213 units for general category families.
The project coming up in around nine acres in Kalladimukham colony also
includes construction of a community hall, study centre, library, anganwadi,
television kiosk, roads, storm-water drainage, biogas plant, health club,
streetlights, drinking water supply and so on.
The first phase of the project, that includes construction of 105 houses, is
expected to be completed in a year.Although a section of colony residents had
initially protested against the inclusion of beneficiaries from general category in
the project, the differences had been sorted out recently with the intervention of
City Mayor K. Chandrika.
‘Issues resolved'
The agitators had demanded that the benefits of the project should be provided
only to deserving families from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as the
land for the housing project had been bought using the Special Component Plan
(SCP) fund allotted for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes development
projects.
“The agitators were under the wrong impression that the Corporation had
bought the land Kalladimukham using SCP funds alone. But the Corporation
had, in fact, bought the land using both SCP and general fund. So beneficiaries
from both categories can avail of the benefits of the project. The Mayor had
recently convened a meeting to convince this to the agitators following which
the issue was resolved,” said Corporation works standing committee chairman
V.S. Padmakumar.
He added that the steps for preparing the beneficiary list for the project would
begin soon. Families from slum areas in 15 wards adjoining Kalladimukham
will be rehabilitated with the project.
Pucca Houses for Poor, Slum Improvement Underway in 34 MP Cities
March 9, 2010 Visionmp.com news service
Bhopal – Implementation on 37 schemes for construction of pucca houses for
the poor and improvement of slums is going on at a fast pace in 34 cities of
Madhya Pradesh. The cost of these initiatives under Integrated Housing and
Slum Improvement Project is Rs 27035.99 lakh.
The scheme has been implemented by merging National Slum Development
Programme and Valmiki Ambedkar Yojana under which 18503 houses are
being constructed in 37 cities of the state. Under the scheme, 80 per cent funds
are allocated by the Union government and 8 to 10 per cent grant is given by the
state government. The beneficiary’s share is only 10 to 12 per cent.
The Union government has fixed the cost of a housing unit at Rs 80 thousand,
which sometimes is insufficient for practical purposes. Efforts are underway to
resolve the matter following which the pace of construction will gather
momentum.
Under the scheme, 4576 houses are being constructed for the urban poor in
Gwalior city and 2108 in Khandwa under two schemes.
Pucca houses are also being built for the urban poor in Ganj Basoda, Lateri,
Vidisha, Sironj, Kurwai, Berasia in Bhopal division and Khujner in Rajgarh
district.
In Khandwa, Depalpur, Pansemal and Dewas in Indore division, 2724 houses
will be constructed.
In all, 2182 houses will be constructed in Katni, 966 in Balaghat, 651 in
Narsinghpur, 240 each in Patan and Barela, 104 in Shahpura, 140 in Majholi
and 104 in Damoh. Besides, 192 houses will be constructed in Indore division’s
Betma and Gautampura, 240 in Petlawad in Jhabua, 153 in Itarsi, 180 in
Mandideep, 297 in Hoshangabad, 192 in Orchha, 833 in Burhanpur and 167 in
Jaora.
In all, 480 houses will be constructed in Sagar, 500 in Chhindwara city and 267
and 461 houses respectively in Mehgaon and Saunsar in the same district.
Conclusion:
Despite some successes and the support of the World Bank and the UN-
HABITAT, not all believe slum upgrading is the ideal choice for solving the
problem of slums. In fact, there are a number of different players – such as local
politicians – who would like to see the status quo concerning slums stay the
same. Yet beyond petty local politics, there are major problems with the slum
upgrading approach, some of which have to do with the very nature of many
slums themselves. For example, in order to lay infrastructure for slum
upgrading projects, the governments inevitably have to buy land. However, this
raises tremendous difficulties when trying to figure out which land to buy, since
slums are (by definition) so densely populated that some houses are literally on
top of one another, making it difficult to bring any sense of organization to the
areas.
The second problem with slum upgrading stems from the fact that land
ownership is not clear. Many times slum dwellers are either transient dwellers
or have informal arrangements with the community around them. As a result, as
many governments try to go in and establish land rights, difficulties ensue. The
World Bank has attempted to separate land ownership deeds and the actual
development of infrastructure, but this creates whole new problems of its own.
After all, if ownership is not clearly established, tenants are often unlikely to
pay for the utilities they receive as a result of the slum upgrading projects.
Developing nations cannot afford to provide free utilities for an extended period
of time, so this creates a huge problem for attempts at slum upgrading.
Another criticism of slum upgrading is that the infrastructure built as a result
must be maintained. In fact, because many governments try to cut the costs of
slum upgrading via lower quality infrastructure, subsequent costs of
maintenance are often higher. In fact, a minority (47 percent) of the World
Bank’s urban projects are considered sustainable. Thus, for many of the
projects, the one-time cost is not enough: slum upgrading projects are long-term
commitments unless they are made with the ability to recover costs through
revenue.
Finally, there is difficulty in establishing community and group efforts to bring
about real improvement within the slum community. Slums are areas in which
violence and conflict are rampant – yet often outside of the scope of knowledge
of the government. Because community participation can significantly help the
people who are actually doing the slum upgrading by shedding light on
community issues that would otherwise hamper slum upgrading efforts, not
engaging the community (either from a lack of effort or inherent lack of ability)
makes slum upgrading much more difficult
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