Open Forum
New Delhi, 8 September 2010
Urbanizing Fast,
Developing Slowly
CITIES LACK BASIC
LIVING STANDARDS
By Suraj Saraf
The mess that fast Indian urbanization is shaping into has
been highlighted in a number of recent reports by various agencies. In one such
telling report by Mckinsey Global Institute (MGI) India needed $ 1.2 trillion capital
expenditure to cater to this growth, mainly in infrastructure, an eight-fold
increase of the current spending level.
Worse, “Across all major quality-of-life indicators, India’s cities
fall well short of delivering even a basic standard of living for their
residents. Considering that the country “spends only $17 per capita on urban
infrastructure, compared to rival China’s $116. Clearly, an inadequate
amount,” the report added.
While it took about 40 years for the urban population to
rise by nearly 230 million in 2008, it would take only half that time to add
the next 250 million people. Thus, over the next two decades, the country would
see an urban transformation the scale and speed of which has not happened
anywhere except China,
with many cities becoming larger than many countries in terms of population
size.
Consider: India
has Asia’s third largest economy and the
increasing global clout that goes with it. It is already home to a quarter of
the world’s 20 most densely populated countries. While rapidly modernizing
cities such as China’s Shanghai and Brazil’s
Sao Paulo are winning business from London and New York, the
slow pace of urban development in India is harming its cities. Which would
be home to 530 million people in 2021 and about 590 million in 2030, nearly
twice the population of US. Alongwith poor infrastructure it would shave off 2
percentage points of India’s
economic growth.
Besides, the growth of urban population has put severe
pressure on civic amenities, water supply, sewerage, drainage, transport and availability
of houses in all major cities. Notwithstanding, the 11th Plan’s
estimate of Rs.53,666 crore for water supply, Rs. 53168 crore for sewerage,
Rs.20173 crore for drainage and Rs.2212 crore for solid waste management in
urban areas.
Shockingly, even as the economy shows an upward growth
trajectory, around 49000 slums continue to blight the urban landscape forcing
lakhs of people to live in pathetic conditions, according to the National
Sample Survey. Making things worse, of these 49000 slums, 24% were located
along nallahas and drains and around
12% along railway tracks. Not surprisingly 57% of slums had come up on public
land, owned mostly by local bodies and State Governments.
Also, though sanitary conditions in slums in terms of toilet
facilities had improved, a lot still needed to be done. True, toilets with septic
tanks (or similar facility) were available in 68% notified and 47% non-notified
slums (up from 66% and 35% respectively in 2002). But around 10% notified and
20% non-notified slums (down from 17% and 51% respectively in 2002) did not
have any toilet facility at all, despite, the UPA Government’s ambitious
promise of making India
slum-free.
More. Around 10% notified and 23% non-notified slums did not
have any drainage facility at all. Of these 48% were water-logged during
monsoon, 32% inside the slums and approach road and 9% on only the approach
road.
As for roads, regardless of about 50% improvement in
notified slums in the last five years, the survey found that 78% of notified
slums and 57% of non-notified slums had an approach road inside the slum and
around 73 of the notified and 58% of non-notified slums had a motorable
approach road. While 64% of the notified
slums had a majority of pucca dwellings
the corresponding percentage for non-notified slums was 50%. Only 1% notified
and 7% non-notified slums did not have electricity connection.
Importantly, given this messed-up urbanization, the World
Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a ‘1000 cities, 1000 lives,’ project to
accelerate improvement. Under this campaign, cities have been invited to earmark
a portion of their streets to people and close them to motor vehicles, offering
citizens public space for physical exercise, meeting family, friends and
community, health checks, eating healthy food or visiting local attractions. Already
84 countries and 453 cities have registered their participation of which 80
cities are Indian.
To ensure lasting health benefit to cities and citizens,
special attention is being paid to schools, activities with children, clean-up poster
campaigns in schools and university forums, company relay races, health fairs
and town hall meeting with mayors, State heads and national leaders on local
health concerns.
Undoubtedly, the WHO has launched this project as all
population growth over the next 30 years would be in urban areas, which in turn
is fast emerging as a major challenge for public health issues. Namely, water,
environment, communicable diseases like tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and non-communicable
diseases like tobacco use, unhealthy diets.
Given this scenario, the Union Government is soon launching a
National Urban Health Mission to provide better health care to urban slums.
This ambitious Rs.33000 crore scheme is expected to bring under its purview
domestic helps, vegetable vendors and vulnerable population like migrants, rag
pickers and street children.
Importantly, the Mission
aims to correct “structural imbalances” of public health system in urban areas,
including that of infrastructure and human resource. It plans to focus on urban
slum dwellers who neither get the benefit of routine immunization nor of vector-born
diseases programmes. As also reproductive and child health care in cities with
a more than one lakh population. Particularly as several health indicators
among the urban poor are worse than those in rural areas. The under-five child
mortality rate is 72.7 significantly higher than the urban average of 51.9, per
1000. The Mission
aims at reducing this to 30 per thousand. Whether it will succeed only time
will tell. ---- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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