CDP-II: Basic disservice to urban poor

By Kartik Lokhande 

Urban poor. The term is used widely these days by policy-makers, planners, consultants, and the civic authorities. All of them agree that with rapid urbanisation, migration from rural areas to the city is increasing and the number of urban poor is growing. However, what is being done in the name of ‘taking care of urban poor’ is nothing but treating the slums, where urban poor live, as islands.
Slums are directly linked to unregulated growth and development of the city. The root cause is ad-hoc measures adopted over the years, and those too, taken without integrated approach. As a result, houses are coming up in place of slum-dwellings but the road network continues to be narrow in these slums. A layer or two of cement are spread on internal roads in slums, but for want of proper vision for all-round development, drainage system continues to be poor. As a result, in many slum areas, hygiene and sanitation still are serious issues. Piped water supply is available only in pockets, and most of the slums still depend on supply through tankers. In sum, the problems still persist because measures taken so far have been ad-hoc in nature and the slums were never considered to be an important aspect of integrated approach towards preparation of City Development Plan (CDP).
As per official figures, there are total 446 slums in which 8,58,963 persons live. In as many as 1,47,716 slum dwelling units in the city, 58 per cent are kachcha and semi-pucca structures. As per the data available with Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), maximum 14 per cent of the slums are in Dhantoli and Ashi Nagar zones. With growth in economic opportunities in the city, it is attracting population from nearby villages and semi-urban areas. This is increasing population in slum areas. And, eventually, there is rise in number of urban poor. In the process, many open plots in and around the city are being encroached upon and new slum dwelling units are coming up in fragments.
All this is putting an extra burden on existing infrastructure as well as urban services. Indications could be seen in failure of the city in meeting service-level benchmarks set under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
For instance, the service-level benchmark for the performance parameter of per capita water supply was set at 135 litres per capita per day (lpcd) by Union Ministry of Urban Development. But, in reality, NMC could achieve only 100-110 lpcd. Further, metered water supply coverage is only 28 per cent as against the benchmark of 100 per cent. Non-revenue water distribution is as high as 56 per cent as against the benchmark of 20 per cent. The continuity of water supply was expected to be 24x7, that is round-the-clock. NMC also launched with much fanfare the scheme and went on blowing own trumpet. However, now, NMC’s own records that it provided to consultant agency Crisil Risk and Infrastructure Solutions Limited (CRIS), state that NMC has been able to provide water supply for only six hours per day!
Similar is the case with sewerage and sanitation. As against the service-level benchmark of 100 per cent collection efficiency for sewage network, NMC has been able to perform up to 29 per cent only. On the count of adequacy of sewage treatment capacity, it could go up to 22 per cent only as against the benchmark of 100 per cent. NMC has failed miserably in ensuring reuse and recycling of sewage, a component in which it was expected to achieve the benchmark of 20 per cent. As high as 60 per cent of the city area is not covered by under-ground drainage and condition of open nullahs is ‘deteriorating’, state a recent report.
In solid waste management also, NMC could not achieve seven out of total eight service-level benchmarks. During monsoon, it is seen commonly that sewage and storm water mix due to flooding. This results in health and hygiene problems. As against the road length of 2,620 kilometres, storm water drains cover only 917 kilometres, which is merely 35 per cent of the road length. This is the reason why there is flooding and waterlogging of streets and many residential areas.
But, thanks to the city fathers and the administrators, every one of these issues has been paid a ‘compartmentalised’ attention. Besides, the root cause of rise in urban population and specially that of urban poor in slum areas of the city, has been ignored. Even the slums were treated as ‘isolated islands’, where corporators of respective areas spent development fund for spreading layer of cement on narrow and congested lanes and by-lanes. It does not appear to have struck the powers-that-be to consider integration of the issue of basic services to urban poor with the plan for city’s development. As a result, everytime, the plans of urban local body look good only on paper. At the time of implementation, however, the civic authorities fail to meet service-level benchmarks.
Under JNNURM, the aspect was given a serious thought and a scheme ‘Basic Services to Urban Poor’ (BSUP) was launched in 2006. In fact, JNNURM was launched under two Union Ministries namely Ministry of Urban Employment (MoUD) and Ministry of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation (MoUEPA). The rationale for placing JNNURM under two ministries was that almost half of urban population in the country lives in slums. Thus, two Sub-Mission Directorates were established -- one for Urban Infrastructure and Governance and another for BSUP.
The Sub-Mission Directorate for Urban Infrastructure and Governance has the charter of achieving development of urban infrastructure with a focus across sectors in the urban context. The Sub-Mission Directorate for BSUP focuses on access to infrastructure for the urban poor. This Sub-Mission has a seven-point charter -- security of tenure, housing, water supply, sanitation, education, health, and social security cover. For most of the period of CDP-I, this was ignored. Only in the recent past this aspect caught attention of the city fathers. Soon, work started on that. In areas like Sanjay Nagar, Khadan, Pandhrabodi etc houses are being constructed under BSUP but a variety of aspects including proper drainage, wide roads, margin between two houses to ease out congestion and ensure fire safety etc are being ignored completely. A visit to any of the slums reveals this. Besides, in many slums, even the slum-dwellers have not been made properly and fully aware of the scheme’s benefits.
As per the revised toolkit for preparation of CDP-II, states that it is ‘essential to understand the linkages between the issues and the root causes’ before preparing any kind of strategies and action plans. The toolkit document calls for focus on both -- alleviation of urban poverty and providing basic services to urban poor. It envisions that goals and service outcomes towards this direction should be achieved in a step-wise manner by the year 2021. These goals are -- housing for urban poor, adequate access to water supply, provisions of sewer lines to all slums, access to sanitation for all slum-dwellers, collection facilities of solid waste from slums, upgradation of kachcha roads, improved drainage facilities, and adequate social infrastructure facilities like health and education.
The action plan to achieve these goals also has been laid out in the toolkit document. The action plan includes seven steps -- categorisation of slums, integrated development of slums, rehabilitation of slums, redevelopment of slums, construction of housing for urban poor, access to health and education, and livelihood restoration and social security. However, the overall emphasis so far appears to be only on providing housing. But, that emphasis also is inadequate. For, as against 1.23 lakh houses required to make the city slum-free, only over a thousand houses are under construction. This leaves one wonder if the Nagpur city will ever become slum-free.
Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) Nagpur Centre has suggested that 50 per cent of the financial outlay of CDP-II should be devoted to providing basic services to urban poor and implementing the seven-point charter mentioned above.
It is said that hell is paved with good intentions. This presumes that there exists at least a thought to make the intentions good. Unfortunately, and sadly, in case of Nagpur city, there appears to be no thought and hence no good intentions to prepare a better and effective CDP-II. It leaves the question unanswered -- if the city will become a heaven with all the growth and development or turn into something worse than hell, as there is no pavement of good intentions.

Zone-wise spread of slums in city 

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Zone                     Spread of slums

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Dhantoli                  14 %

Ashi Nagar             14%

Lakadganj              12%

Satranjipura           12%

Mangalwari            11%

Dharampeth           11%

Gandhibagh            09%

Laxmi Nagar          07%

Nehru Nagar          06%

Hanuman Nagar    04%

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Growth of slums in Nagpur

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Year         Number of slums

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1971         47

1981         Not Available

1991         320

2001         424

2011         446

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(Source: NMC-CRIS document, December 2013)  

Published in The Hitavada CityLine on March 2, 2014