Geneva, Palais des Nations - May 3-6, 2000
CITIES OF THE SOUTH:
SUSTAINABLE FOR WHOM?
| WORKSHOP PAPERS |
|
|
ESF/N-AERUS International Workshop Geneva, Palais des Nations - May 3-6, 2000
CITIES OF THE SOUTH:
|
|
||
| WORKSHOP: HOME PAGE - INDEX OF PAPERS |
P.G.Dhar Chakrabarti
-
At 300 millions, urban population of India is still less than 30% of its total population, compared to the world average of 50%. It is projected that by 2045, Indians will outnumber the Chinese and nearly 800 million people shall live in its cities, half of it below the poverty level. This will be larger than the total population of the whole of Europe. Surely this will the greatest challenge before the world's largest democracy.
Already urban infrastructure in its 6 mega cities and 40 million+ cities are under very severe stress. The ground water resources are getting rapidly depleted, pollution level reaching a breaking point, transportation system in a disarray and sewerage and sanitation in shambles, with a telling effect on public health and hygiene.
There has not been adequate appreciation of this explosive situation at the national and international level. This paper analyses the programs and policies so far adopted to correct the situation, identifies their shortcomings and looks into the new initiatives that have been taken to make the cities self sustainable units of governance and delivery of services.
The concept of sustainable cities in the Indian context has been taken not from the environmental point view only, it has been seen from the larger perspective of sustainability of governance and of resources. A city which has the autonomy in decision making on issues which affect its interests and a city which has the resources to pursue those interests can better adopt and adapt environmentally sustainable technologies. One reason why such technologies have not made much headway is that cities did not have either the administrative or the financial autonomy to develop itself. Therefore local initiative and local dynamism based on the local resources, local needs and local talents did not flourish. Many initiatives have been taken in the recent past to unshackle the cities from the excessive controls and restrictions which thwarted the development of their personalities.
At the decision making level, the Constitution of India has been amended to define greater autonomy of the urban local bodies over their functions, resources and management and an institutionalized mechanism has been created for devolution of greater resources from the center and the provinces to the municipalities commensurate with their enhanced responsibilities . Nearly four thousand urban local bodies of India are undergoing a metamorphosis with varying degrees of success and failure.
The burning issue is how these bodies shall mobilize resources to meet the widening gap between the requirement and availability of urban infrastructure and services like water, sanitation, transport, housing etc. So far Indian cities have depended heavily on budgetary support from the Government which will increasingly become scarce. Assistance from the bilateral and multilateral funding agencies will also be just a fraction of the requirement. The urban sector has the potentiality to generate resources through various innovative methods. Some of the cities have shown considerable dynamism in this regard.
There is tremendous possibility of reform in urban property taxation and utility tariffs, and major leads have been taken by some of the bigger cities. This is opening up the possibilities of greater private sector participation in the construction and management of urban infrastructure services. But the pace of reform is abysmally slow.
The greatest handicap is the poor capacity of majority of city dwellers to pay for the services. While an innovative tariff structure which cross subsidizes the basic minimum consumption has been very relevant in the Indian context, efforts have been made to develop new technology options for a decentralized and low cost solution of urban services.
The paper will highlight three new sustainable and low cost technology options that have been developed in the Indian context. These are:
All these new technologies are not only cost effective, these are sustainable and environment friendly as well.
These technologies have been adopted with varying degrees of success in various cities. This paper will take up a few success and failure stories to identify the factors which were responsible for the successes and failures. Invariably the technologies were much better adopted by the people and better adapted to local conditions where there was greater devolution in decision making and greater involvement of community in the implementation of the decision than in the cities where these were administered by the officials. The study will draw heavily from the experiences of Calcutta, Hyderabad where significant progresses have been made in this regard.
N-AERUS: Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South
http://www.naerus.net