State of urban networks and services

1. State of Urban Networks And
Services

2. INTRODUCTION
 The state of urban service delivery in India’s cities and towns
is far poorer than is desirable for India’s current income
levels.
 Considering that the Indian economy has been one of the
fastest growing economies in the world for some time, and
aspirations and standards are raising, the current state of
service delivery is simply unacceptable.

4. Service norms for Indian cities
 First attempt at setting urban service norms and standards was
made by : Zakaria Committee in 1963
 MAIN AIM: to laid down the physical norms and corresponding
expenditure norms for five services, i.e.
◦ sewerage
◦ storm water drainage
◦ water supply
◦ Urban roads
◦ Street lighting
 The Zakaria Committee adopted a demand-driven approach for
estimating service standards and per capita investment
requirements for urban India.

5.  Subsequently other government agencies/institutions like ;
◦ Town and Country Planning Organisation (1974),
◦ Planning Commission (1983),
◦ Operations Research Group (1989),
◦ Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India
(1991),
◦ Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering
Organisation (1999),
◦ State governments

7.  Ministry of Urban Development :
◦ Zakaria Committee couldn’t measure the standards relevant for
an economy growing at 8 to 9 per cent per annum.
◦ The pattern of consumption of urban services has increased.
Recognising this need, the Ministry of Urban Development,
Government of India has prescribed service level benchmarks
for a number of urban services.
◦ Consultative process with state governments and other
stakeholders was initiated in 2006, which culminated in the final
benchmarks published by the Ministry in December 2008
◦ The benchmarks are important for shifting focus from the
creation of physical infrastructure to service delivery because
poor governance can create situations in which additional capital
investments in urban infrastructure do not result in
corresponding improvements in service delivery.

8. Thirteenth Central Finance Commission:
 The Thirteenth Central Finance Commission has endorsed these
benchmarks and has made compliance with them a necessary
condition for Urban Local Bodies (ULB) to obtain performance-
linked grants
 The Committee believes that the benchmark norms specified by
the Ministry are consistent with the economic and social
aspirations arising from India’s GDP growth targets of 8 to 9 per
cent per annum
 In arriving at the estimates for urban infrastructure, the
Committee has adopted the principle of same standards for all
citizens in a city/town without making any distinction between
the urban poor, the non-poor, and the slum dweller.
 The same service standards have been used for all city size
classes for the basic services of:
◦ water supply, sewerage, and solid waste management
 While differential standards have been used for different size
cities in :
◦ urban transport-related sectors, including storm water
drainage.

10. State of urban service delivery
 Water Supply:
◦ Inadequate coverage, intermittent supplies, low pressure,
and poor quality are some of the most prominent features
of water supply in the cities of India.
◦ With rapid increase in urban population and continuing
expansion of city limits, the challenge of delivering water
in Indian cities is growing rapidly.

12. Solution-continuous Water Supply:
 In a continuously pressurised distribution system,
contaminants surrounding the pipelines cannot penetrate even
if there are breaks in the pipes and joints. Without continuous
pressure, street run-off, drainage water, raw sewage from
adjacent sewer lines and leaky septic tanks get sucked into the
water mains.
 Providing continuous water supply in cities results in system
efficiency and economic benefits to citizens.
 There is no need for households to invest in domestic storage,
booster pumps, supplementary boreholes, domestic filters,
and other treatment systems when water is in continuous
supply. Also, there is no need to purchase water from private
suppliers.

13. Sewerage and Sanitation
 With very poor sewerage networks, a large number of the urban
poor still depend on public toilets. Many public toilets have no
water supply while the outlets of many others with water supply
are not connected to the city’s sewerage system.
 Over 50 million people in urban India defecate in the open every
day.
 The cost in terms of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) of
diarrhoeal disease for children from poor sanitation is estimated
at Rs 500 crore. The cost per DALY per person due to poor
sanitation is estimated at Rs 5400 and due to poor hygiene
practices at Rs 900 (MoUD 2009b).
 The problem of sanitation is much worse in urban areas than in
rural due to increasing congestion and density in cities.

14. National Urban Sanitation Policy of 2008:
 The National Urban Sanitation Policy of 2008 has laid
down the framework for addressing the challenge of city
sanitation.
 The policy emphasizes the need for spreading awareness
about sanitation through an integrated city-wide
approach, assigning institutional responsibilities and
with due regard for demand and supply considerations,
with special focus on the urban poor.

16. State of Urban Sewerage and Sanitation
 In a City Sanitation Study (2010a) conducted by the
Ministry of Urban Development, none of the 423
cities was found to be ‛healthy’ and ‛clean’.
 The Municipal Corporations of Chandigarh,
Mysore, and Surat and the New Delhi Municipal
Council were the only four ULBs that fared
relatively better. Close to 190 cities in the study
were rated to be in a state of emergency with respect
to public health and the environment

18. Status on waste water treatment
 It is estimated that the lack of waste water treatment leads to
over $15 billion spent in treating water-borne diseases in India
(CII and CEEW 2010).
 Often, polluted water is allowed to leach untreated into surface
and ground water bodies. In the Ganges Basin alone, there are
223 towns and cities that generate 8250 million litres of sewage
each day, of which about 2500 million litres is disposed directly
into the Ganges without treatment and 4250 million litres into its
tributaries.
 Revenue generation from treated water by Navi Mumbai and
Surat corporation:
 Some cities are beginning to unlock revenue streams from
treated waste water. Navi Mumbai sells 100 per cent of its
treated waste water to industries.
 The Surat Municipal Corporation converts its municipal liquid
waste into electricity, leading to reduced emission of greenhouse
gases and savings on energy costs.

19. Solid Waste Management
 The management and disposal of solid waste generated in Indian
cities leaves a great deal to be desired. The Municipal Solid Waste
Rules were put in place in 2000 but their enforcement has been
poor. There is no segregation of waste at source in many areas and
processing & disposing of waste is not upto the mark.

21. Waste Generation In Indian Cities:
 The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has estimated
that by 2047, waste generation in Indian cities will
increase five-fold to touch 260 million tonne per year,
implying that the current solid waste generation is over 50
million tonne per year (Asnani 2006).
 A study by the World Bank (2006) puts India’s annual
generation of municipal solid waste to be somewhat
lower, i.e. in the range of 35 to 45 million tonne,
amounting to about 100,000 to 120,000 metric tonne
every day.
 Asnani (2006) estimates that the annual increase in
overall quantity of solid waste in India’s cities will be at a
rate of 5 per cent per annum.
 The fact that a large part (over 60 per cent) of India’s
waste is biodegradable, provides an opportunity for
composting.

22.  Agencies Involved in Collection Of Waste:
◦ ULBs
◦ Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
◦ Community based organizations and
◦ Private companies are involved in the collection of
solid waste, but little attention is paid to waste
disposal.
 highest household coverage of solid waste collection in
the country:
◦ Chandigarh (96.2 per cent) and
◦ Surat (90.3 per cent) (MoUD, Government of India
2010b).

23.  Issues:
◦ Disposal practices at the open dumping sites are highly
unsatisfactory.
◦ The poor management of solid waste has led to
contamination of groundwater and surface water through
leachate and pollution of air through unregulated burning of
waste.
◦ Unscientific practices in processing and disposal compound
the environmental hazards posed by solid waste.
 Why this issues is happening?
◦ Little attention is paid to processing and scientific disposal
of the waste where as the distribution of the expenditure is
heavily loaded in favour of collection and transportation