Urban Sanitation in Indian Cities: Reflections from Varanasi

Abstract

Urban sanitation for a common man is considered as the collection, treatment and disposal of solid and liquid waste including human excreta. However, it is a much complex phenomena and takes into account all about the management of garbage services, systems, technology and attitudes in an urban environment. It affects everyone in the society irrespective of their socio-economic status. Hence, it is the time to understand urban sanitation not merely as a platitude but as a business, opportunity and civic and administrative necessity. Adequate sanitation is a basic human right, a contributory factor to the poverty cycle adversely affecting overall productive forces, and much more than an inconvenience that costs lives, dignity and productivity. In pre-independent India, Mahatma Gandhi was a great advocate of sanitation. After Independence, water supply and sanitation became the national agenda since the first five-year plan. However, sanitation, particularly in urban India, has remained the poor cousin to urban water supply both on paper and practice. With increasing levels of urbanization, rapid spatial expansion of cities, and increased amount of domestic water supply the quantity of grey/wastewater has been increasing with the passage of time. NIUA (National Institute of Urban Affairs (2005) Status of water supply, sanitation and solid waste management in urban areas. Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, New Delhi) indicates that only 59% of the wastewater generated is collected by the sewerage system, and only 21% is treated before disposal. With this backdrop, the paper intends to highlight the state of urban sanitation at macro level and highlights the existing grassroot level realities of availability of toilets and bathrooms within and outside houses and the existing sewerage system at micro level taking Varanasi as a case study. The work is based on primary data collected from twelve sample municipal wards through a set of questionnaires, and supported by other techniques like informal discussion FGD, PRA and observation technique. Secondary sources of data include documents of ULBs, relevant government reports/ documents and study reports/research articles.