In the present set up the SMC is the most important organisational unit responsible for the provision of basic amenities in the city. The local authority was established as a small municipality in 1853. In 1952 Surat became a borough municipality and in 1966 it was accorded the status of a Corporation.

The SMC is governed by the provisions of the Bombay Provincial Municipal (BPMC) Act, 1949. The SMC, in accordance with the provisions of the BPMC Act, has two wings, the elected and executive. The elected deliberative wing consists of the General Body, Standing Committee and other Special Committees. The General Body comprises elected representatives and is headed by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, who are elected from amongst the elected members. The Standing Committee comprises some elected members who are appointed by the General Body and is headed by a Chairman selected from amongst the members themselves. The executive wing of the SMC comprises the Commissioner and other municipal officials. The Commissioner is appointed by the state government and is the administrative head of the Corporation. The BPMC Act provides at least 25 obligatory functions, which include basic sanitation, public health, water supply, collection, removal and treatment of solid and liquid wastes, etc. It is incumbent on the Corporation to make adequate financial and other provisions for all the obligatory functions. The BPMC Act also provides a list of 42 discretionary functions which can be performed by the Corporation in case it so desires and is financially capable.

Just when plague was believed to have been wiped off from the face of the earth, the sudden resurgence of bubonic plague in Beed district of Maharashtra and pneumonic plague cases in Surat city of Gujarat state, in September-October 1994, took the central, state and local administration and health officials in the country by surprise. It also caused a global concern. The independent team established by WHO concluded that the clinical, epidemiological and serological findings pointed to the Y- Pestis as the likely causative agent for the Surat outbreak. "A total of 146 presumptive (seropositive) cases and 54 deaths considered as due to plague occurred between 19 September and 22 October 1994" (WHO, 1995).

"Plague is a disease of great antiquity, recorded in the ancient writings of India as well as in the bible. Three great pandemics have swept the world claming many millions of lives and causing untold misery. The last pandemic, which began in the late 19th century, claimed about 13 million lives in India alone. A remarkable decline in the number of cases and deaths due to plague was observed in the 20th century in all parts of the world, including India, where no case has been reported since 1967." (WHO, 1995)

The plague created widespread panic in the city and approximately 60 per cent of Surat’s population fled. It was a severe blow not only to Surat’s economy which suffered a loss of several millions of rupees every day but also to the national economy because it affected industrial production, tourism, export, etc. India’s international image suffered a severe blow. Some of the foreign airlines temporarily stopped their flights to and from India and some countries banned the import of food grains from here and quarantined passengers from India for exhaustive medical check ups (Ghosh and Ahmad, 1996)

A high level interregional meeting on prevention and control of plague, organised by WHO in New Delhi in March 1995 observed that environmental conditions pertaining to breeding of rodents, fleas and mosquitoes and the access to safe water and sanitation play a dominant role in the origin of many epidemics including cholera, malaria and plague.

As the local administration, in this case the SMC, was responsible for providing public health facilities to the citizens, the public, media, researchers and health officials squarely blamed the local body not only for a grossly inadequate response during plague but also for its general lack of performance. It was commented that "They (municipal officials) play with the lives of the people with impunity. Thanks to the utter negligence of the health department of the SMC, the fastest growing city in the country has become a home as well as a transit point for many diseases. ÖÖ Pneumonic plague struck this year, but malaria, dengue fever, jaundice, gastroenteritis claim scores of lives in the diamond city every year" (Dasai, 1994).

The immediate cause of the plague in Surat was constant rain and repeated floods which lashed the city for more than 2 months causing large scale water logging in the low lying are because of the faulty and clogged drainage system. Hundreds of cattle and other animals died due to the flood and water logging. The municipal officials were not prompt in removing carcasses and this created enormous sanitation problems. It was only when the flood receded that the community members initiated the cleaning operation. The godowns storing food grains remained under water for a considerably long time. It is believed that the plague spread because poor people consumed those cereals which might have been infected by rodents or the people who were cleaning water logged areas came in contact with infected rodents or carcasses and contracted the disease. The northern part of the city, most affected by plague and from where the largest number of deaths were reported, did not have access to any type of sewerage system provided by the municipal authority. Despite being one of the richest civic bodies in the country the SMC failed to provide basic sanitation and clean drinking water to a vast majority of its citizens. As in any natural calamity or epidemic, the poor living in slums or dilapidated houses on the outskirts of the city, where potable water, sewerage system and garbage disposal were most inadequate, were the worst affected. "Three-fourths of those who died were migrants from Saurashtra and Maharashtra. As many as 80 per cent of deaths and serologically positive cases had a working class background" (Shah, 1997,p-223).

As a knee-jerk reaction the Municipal Corporation undertook a massive cleaning operation in the wake of the plague outbreak. The central and state government departments, and doctors in public and private hospitals, came to the rescue of the municipal government. The civic authorities launched a seven-point action plan for restoring normalcy at the earliest involving government, non-government, community organisations and the private sector. The big industrial groups in the city loaned their excavators and trucks to the SMC to clean the 4000 tonnes of garbage which had accumulated over the days. Private agencies were also hired to help in removing the garbage. The SMC gave utmost priority to cleaning dirt and debris, disposal of carcasses, pumping of stagnant water, spraying of DDT and anti-rodent operations, etc. Residents in different localities also came forward and burned the garbage, sprayed DDT on pools of stagnant water and cleaned their surroundings. However, all the above were short-term measures to bring the plague epidemic under control at the earliest. Municipal authorities failed to provide immediate solutions to persisting problems of infrastructural deficiency in the city. After the massive cleanliness operation, the city administration again returned to its earlier callous self and Surat gradually slipped back into the old days of garbage and filth.

In May 1995, the Government of Gujarat launched a major programme to clean up Surat on a permanent basis. A new Commissioner, Mr. S. R. Rao, took charge of the Municipal Corporation. Under his leadership, environmental cleanliness became the paramount concern of the civic body. Within one year through well orchestrated methods, administrative, legal, punitive and community motivation, the SMC increased the cleaning of accumulated garbage from 450 tonnes or 50 per cent of the amount generated at the time of plague to almost 94 per cent of the 1100 tonnes of garbage generated everyday in 1995.

A three member environmentalist group of Intach - Waste Network visited Surat in November, 1994, just after the plague, as a part of their Clean – India Campaign. They had commented that despite its wealth, Surat was an unbelievably filthy city with huge amounts of industrial waste spilled around everywhere and flowing into the polluted canals and streams. However, at their repeat visit to Surat in August 1996, the group noted the spectacular improvement in overall cleanliness in the city and concluded that " Surat, is perhaps, the second cleanest city in India, after Chandigarh" (Patel 1996). The transformation of Surat from one of the filthiest to one of the cleanest cities in the country was primarily the result of dramatically successful efforts and new initiatives taken by the SMC.

The most important initiative launched in the post-plague environmental management efforts by the SMC was to monitor, regulate and streamline garbage collection and disposal. The emphasis was on garbage collection because the wide-spread realisation after the plague was that filth and garbage, which had accumulated in the city, was the breeding ground of the dangerous epidemic. It was also realised that sanitation and public health are inseparable, and need to be tackled in an integrated manner. Therefore, to keep the city healthy garbage control was adopted as the key environmental management initiative.

The garbage collection and disposal system operating before the epidemic was inadequate in terms of both manpower and equipment. It was also riddled with lack of motivation and commitment among the employees and the absence of an efficient monitoring and management process at the Corporation level. These deficiencies were addressed at length while planning an efficient garbage management system.

The whole city has been divided into 52 sanitary wards, which fall under the six administrative zones. A sanitary inspector is in-charge of each sanitary ward for cleanliness actions. Meticulous ward level planning has been done for garbage collection and disposal. Selection of points for placing garbage bins; number of garbage trolleys, bins and containers required; estimated amount of garbage generated; number of trucks and trips required to collect and ferry it to dumping points; number of sweepers and supervisors required, their duty time, shifts, etc. were critically considered while chalking out the micro plan for garbage management. The special needs of critical spots like vegetable markets, eating points, congested areas with heavy traffic flow were given special consideration while formulating the ward level plan.

Households, industries and eateries were given individual cleanliness instructions. While the municipal sweepers were to collect garbage from house to house in a trolley and transport it to the nearest municipal garbage collection point, all the commercial establishments including shops and roadside eating joints were instructed to maintain a dustbin in front of their shops and to ensure that cleanliness was maintained around their shops. Restaurants and hotels were instructed to maintain bins for collecting refuse and they also had to pack and dispose the garbage at the designated sites.

The field employees issue regular instructions and information to housewives on how to sort, pack and dispose garbage. In the slum localities regular programmes were conducted to disseminate knowledge on cleanliness and hygiene.

Each area is cleaned at least once in 24 hours. Usually cleaning is carried out in two shifts during the day, i.e., from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The main roads and market places are swept at night while the public land in residential and institutional areas is cleaned during day time.

However, the city does not have any modern system of garbage disposal. At present also all garbage is being disposed off in landfills. The 1,000 tonnes of garbage which is collected from all garbage points located in different parts of the city, is transported by trucks to the dumping site where after being covered with earth it is levelled by bulldozers. The transportation of refuse is strictly in covered trucks to avoid spilling. Pesticides and insecticides are also dispensed in and around each garbage bin to check the proliferation of germs.

The Sanitation Department of the SMC always had the reputation of being understaffed. It came to our notice, during our earlier survey immediately after the plague, that there were only 2,600 sweepers on the municipal pay-roll. This number was utterly inadequate to clean 111.17 sq. km. of area. The staff strength in the Department has been increased considerably in the last two years. Now there are 4,701 sweepers, 122 supervisors, 130 sanitary sub-inspectors and 55 sanitary inspectors work under 18 chief sanitary inspectors (Table 2). Each sweeper covers approximately 35,000 sq. ft area every day. However, there is variation in the number of staff of different categories in different wards and zones. The entire Public Health Department of the SMC functions under the Deputy Commissioner, Health and Hospitals. Ward level staffing pattern of sanitation departments shows that for each ward with an approximate area of 3.4 sq. km. and a population of 60,000, there are, on an average, 50 or more sweepers, 3 supervisors, 2 sanitary sub-inspectors and one sanitary inspectors. The infrastructure has also grown significantly in the last two years. SMC has deployed 136 vehicles for garbage collection and dumping. However, with only one big disposal site of around 20 acres at Bhatar the city genuinely suffers from inadequate garbage dumping space.

Table 2

Staffing Pattern of Public Health and Sanitation Department of the SMC

Table 3

Infrastructure Available for Solid Waste Collection and Disposal in the SMC

Total No. of Vehicles: a. Trucks - 26

Total No. of Containers: 600

Number of Dustbins: 445

Although private initiative started on a temporary basis during the plague epidemic to cleanse the filth and remove dead carcasses accumulated in the water logged areas, it was strengthened and regulated in the post-plague period. At present, privatisation initiatives are limited to: i) hiring of private vehicles with driver for garbage collection ,ii) contracting out cleaning of certain roads and iii) employing private sweepers for transporting municipal refuse from collection points to disposal sites. Private contractors, at present, handle almost 40 per cent of the solid waste generated in the city everyday. However, private contractors work under strict supervision of the municipal staff and penalties are imposed on them for not performing their assigned work.

Monitoring of garbage disposal at the ward level is observed strictly by the Corporation supervisors and sanitary inspectors. Each area is cleaned at least once in a day and some vulnerable areas are cleaned twice a day. However, despite this rigorous cleaning scheduled it was observed that a section of the public and certain industries were not adhering to the rule of throwing garbage only in bins. This was considered a serious violation of municipal bye-laws. A collective decision was taken by the officials to enforce discipline by punitive actions. The SMC introduced the practice of spot "administrative charges" for such offences. The rationale was that the charges were for additional service that the SMC would have to render for removing garbage thrown by the offender. The present rates of administrative charges are illustrated in Table 4.

Table 4

Present Rate of Administrative Charges

The charges were much higher when first introduced. It was reduced recently as the people seemed to have inculcated the habit of throwing garbage in municipal garbage bins. Garbage is no longer strewn around the refuse container. Rag-pickers who mainly collect refuse from municipal containers used to throw garbage around. Now the sweepers on duty keep strict vigil and rag-pickers are allowed to sort wastes from the container only if they clean and sweep the surrounding area later.

• Introduction of administrative charges has automatically increased social vigilance at the community level. People participated in the entire exercise not merely by disposing their own refuse in garbage bins but also by ensuring that no one throws garbage on the streets or in front of one’s house. Some effort towards public participation was made by the SMC in June 1997. The elite of the city were invited to a meeting and the responsibility of an area was assigned to a leading citizen who was made answerable to the public in case of lack of cleanliness in the area. The effort, however, was not very successful.
• The level of civic consciousness has also increased among the citizens. The most tangible result of the same was extremely clean roads and neighbourhoods. During the survey in March 1998, we found the area around every garbage bin spotlessly clean. Sweepers were sitting close to the containers because no bad smell was emanating from them and an adequate amount of insecticides has been sprinkled around the containers. This was a reversal of what was observed during an earlier survey in December1994.
• Insecticide use was observed to be very high in Surat by the environmentalist group which visited the city in 1996. The group reported that Gammexane, BHC which is an extremely harmful pesticide for human health and environment, was being used at the rate of 1,100 tonnes annually. The rag-pickers and sweepers who come in direct contact with them were the worst sufferers. However, the amount of insecticides used has been drastically reduced in the recent past and more environment friendly insecticides are being used.
• The immediate effect of all these measures has been that the amount of garbage collected daily has increased tremendously. In 1994, before the plague outbreak, only 450 tonnes of the 900 tonnes accumulated garbage was lifted daily for disposal. Table 5 shows that yearly collection of garbage has increased over time in almost each of the six zones and as a result the average daily collection has increased from 839.3 tonnes per day in 1995 to 905.47 tonnes in 1997. The trend in the first three months of 1998 shows that it has further increased to 917.11 tonnes per day.

Table 5

Zone-Wise Collection of Solid Waste in SMC (in tonnes)

• Sweeping and cleaning of roads has also improved remarkably. Before May, 1995 the level of sanitation was about 35 per cent while solid waste removal was 40 per cent. With micro planning and an additional per capita investment of Rs. 47 only, the area covered by sanitation has increased to 95 per cent and cleaning of solid waste was increased to 97 per cent every day.
• In comparison with other metropolitan cities, Surat has progressed rapidly in garbage management as is depicted in Table 6. It may also be observed from Table 6 that the efficiency level of garbage collection is highest in Surat. Despite having the highest number of sweepers and highest value of mechanical assets, Mumbai, with only 78.69 per cent efficiency level, lags far behind.
• The intangible effects have been the tremendous boosting of morale of employees, officials and residents of the city. A sense of belonging and pride has developed among the citizens who were earlier indifferent to the city’s well being and almost resigned to the fact that filth and dirt was a part of life.

Table 6

Garbage Disposal Parameters in Selected Major Cities of India , 1995

The concept of "public health mapping", followed by the SMC in the post plague period, through an integrated approach of urban management, boils down to the "single concept of public health management" (Rao). It was developed by the SMC as the primary strategy for improving the city’s health status. The sanitation and solid waste disposal initiatives are an integral part of preventive public health activities. Simultaneously, preventive health care measures, promotional and curative health care systems were strengthened for an effective control of disease and reduction in mortality and morbidity among the city population. The Health Department of the SMC is headed by the Deputy Commissioner (Health and Hospitals), who is assisted by a Medical Officer and a Deputy Medical Officer and a number of doctors and other supporting staff. Unlike other municipal governments in the country, which have very limited health related activities except birth and death registration and providing immunisation, the SMC maintains a network of hospitals, urban health centres, maternity homes, mobile dispensaries and pathological laboratories.

The Health Department, which includes sanitation and solid waste management as well, is the largest department in the SMC both in terms of manpower and financial allocation. However it has been observed that the health infrastructure is still inadequate for the rapidly growing population of the city. The 310 government, municipal and private hospitals in the city equipped with 5,044 beds, serve 20 lakh people resulting in the availability of only 2.5 beds per 1,000 population.

The Health Department of the SMC has separate wings for epidemic control, filaria and malaria control, leprosy control, vaccination, etc. However, the functioning of the Health Department could not keep its mark. In the pre-plague days, SMC’s health infrastructure was not only inadequate but also suffered from various limitations like inadequate medical and para-medical personnel, irregular supply of medicines etc. (Ghosh and Ahmad, 1996).

Strengthening of the health infrastructure, revival of work ethics among the health workers, meticulously planned disease monitoring system and an extensive sanitation drive followed by the SMC have worked wonders for the city’s health indicators in the last two years. Surat used to suffer from several seasonal epidemics like malaria, typhoid, jaundice, gastro-enteritis and influenza before plague. Water borne diseases had the highest reported cases. The preventive health care measures in the new order put emphasis on the chlorine testing of drinking water. Besides testing of water at the water plants all the supervisors have been provided simple kits for chlorine testing. They compulsorily test water in slums under their jurisdiction and additional five samples at household level. Supply of chlorine tablets to individual households where water quality is not satisfactory is also ensured. The areas not supported by municipal piped water supply are catered to by municipal water tankers. To avoid ground water pollution any choked or over flowing drain is cleaned within 24 hours.

A unique system of health monitoring has been introduced which entails close surveillance of health indicators on a regular basis. It provides an early warning system before outbreak of any epidemic. The meticulous system invokes recording of daily inputs from the 275 health surveillance centres in the whole network of municipal hospitals and health centres in the prescribed format by the health and sanitation workers. In each ward information is taken every day from the five best practising private doctors in the area about reported cases of different diseases in their dispensaries. This daily reporting system facilitates constant preparedness towards tackling eventuality and epidemics of any kind. So much so that even the health department has set up a constant monitoring and control team of trained professionals for plague preparedness. The team reportedly dissects rats and sends blood slides for examination to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases on a regular basis.

The constant monitoring of disease pattern and provision of better health care and sanitation facilities have had a tremendous effect on mortality and morbidity rates in the city. The incidence of water borne diseases and malaria, which were the two most common diseases in the city in the pre-plague period, have come down to a significant extent in the post-plague period. The birth rate, death rate and infant mortality which were showing a downward trend in the last three decades, further improved after plague.

Table 7

Trend in Environmental Pollution Related and Water Borne Diseases in Surat

Table 8

Incidence of Malaria in Surat 1989- 1998

Table 9

Birth Rate, Death Rates and Infant Mortality Rates in Surat City

These developments in the health profile of the city which are primarily the result of the recent initiatives are evident in Table 7, 8 and 9.

This success of sanitation and public health activities involved moderate additional expenditure. It may be observed from Table 10 that there was a sudden increase in public health expenditure from Rs. 251.3 million in 1993-’94 to Rs. 329.99 million (20.69% of the total expenditure) in 1994-’95, the year the plague epidemic struck the city. Therefore, the annual health and sanitation expenditure as a proportion of the total expenditure has gradually stabilised to around 11 per cent in the post plague period. (Figure 3)

Table 10

Expenditure on Health, Sanitation and Family Welfare in SMC (Rs. in millions)

Figure 3

The SMC, at present, produces around 320 MLD of water which covers 62 per cent of the total area of the city and 71 per cent of the total population. The per capita water supply is 135 litres per day. In the last two years the Corporation has taken many steps to improve the water supply system in the city. A weir-cum-causeway has been constructed to create a big reservoir upstream of river Tapi which has become a perennial source of water. However, even now most of the extended area which was added to the city in 1986 is not covered by potable water supply system. Although hand pumps have been provided in these areas, they spew non-potable water, as the ground water is brackish due to nearness to the sea. A fleet of 300 water tankers have been pressed into service by the Corporation to provide drinking water in the areas devoid of a proper water supply system.

To cover the remaining 38 per cent area and 29 per cent population, the Corporation has proposed the extension of water supply projects in a phased manner (Table 11). Expenditure on water supply projects has increased from Rs. 93 million in 1993-’94 to Rs. 529 million in 1997-’98, recording an increase of 468.8 per cent. In the budget prepared for the financial year 1998-’99 the expenditure has been further enhanced by 36.11 per cent and the amount earmarked for such projects is Rs. 720 million, which is nearly 16 per cent of the total municipal expenditure proposed for the year (Table 12).

Table 11

Water Supply – Present Coverage and Future Projections in SMC

Year	Coverage
	Area (sq. kms.)	% of Total Area	Population (in million)	% of Total Population
1997	69.23	61.66	1.57	71.15
1998	112.27	100.00	2.32	100.00
1999	112.27	100.00	2.44	100.00
2000	112.27	100.00	2.56	100.00
2001	112.27	100.00	2.68	100.00

The existing sewerage system covers only 26.16 per cent of the area and 61 per cent of the population which is inadequate and much needs to be done to extend the services to the population and area presently devoid of sewerage facilities. The existing sewerage network in the core city area, covering an area of 8.26 sq. kms., installed in 1958, is inadequate for the growing population of the area. To complicate the situation further, there is a near complete absence of sewerage treatment plants in the city. Only two zones have limited treatment facilities the rest of the untreated sewage flows to the nearby creek. The large part of the city which doesn’t have access to sewerage network depends on storm water drainage for sewage disposal. Sullage from individual toilets with septic tanks, community toilet blocks in slums and poorer localities either flows through the storm water drain or is cleaned by the Corporation and disposed at the creek, from where it ultimately flows to river Tapi.

SMC has chalked out detailed plans for providing sewerage network to the rest of the city. However, before the extension of the existing drainage and sewerage network, the Corporation aims at augmenting the water supply system whereby it can cover the entire area and population of the city. The expenditure on sewerage projects has grown from Rs. 82.8 million in 1993-’94 to Rs. 381.2 million in 1997-’98. The 1998-’99 budget provides Rs. 320 million for the sewerage and drainage projects. Besides, the Corporation is also looking for institutional funding to meet the additional financial requirements for sewerage projects.

Table 12

Expenditure on Water Supply Sewerage and Drainage in SMC (Rs. in Million)

With progressive economic activities and tremendous job opportunities Surat has attracted skilled and unskilled labourers from all over the country. Even though they contribute significantly to the city’s economy, the city’s infrastructure is too inadequate to provide housing and basic amenities. The poorer migrant labourers end up residing in authorised and unauthorised slums with no proper drinking water and sanitation facility. The survey of slums sponsored by the SMC and conducted by the Centre for Social Studies, Surat, in 1992, showed that there were 0.43 million slum population, distributed over 93 thousand households across 294 authorised and unauthorised slum pockets with an average family size of 4.6 persons per unit (Das,1994). Slums constituted 27.5 per cent of the total population of the city in 1992 as compared to 17.3 per cent in 1973. It is estimated that, at present, 40 per cent of the city’s population lives in slums and 80 per cent of these are migrants from other states or from other parts of Gujarat. These slums are usually sited on encroached municipal or private land. A majority of the slums are located along major transport corridors, along the bank of river Tapi, canal line and near factory premises. Most of these are marginal lands in low lying areas without proper drainage. People in slums live in extremely congested and unhygienic conditions and as many as 10 to 20 labourers some times share a single room on a shift basis. The acute sanitation and problems related to provision of basic services which prevailed in the pre-plague period can be observed from Table 13.

Table 13

Basic Amenities in Slums of Surat

Improvement of sanitation in slums was one of the most important focuses in the post-plague sanitation drive. The strategies adopted by the Corporation were both in-situ development and relocation. The decision was to provide community facilities rather than individual facilities. Community water hydrants, pay and use community toilets, paved open drains, paved roads and streetlights have been provided on a priority basis in a majority of slums in the last three years. For constructing community toilet blocks specialist NGOs like Sulabh International and Paryavaran were invited. They constructed 57 toilet blocks, with 10 to 20 seats in each block, totalling 794 seats. All previous community toilet blocks constructed by the Corporation, which were in a dilapidated condition due to lack of maintenance, have been demolished. The newly constructed pay-and-use community toilet blocks are also being maintained by the same NGOs. They charge a minimal amount from male users but not from female and children below 12 years of age. The provision of amenities in slums for the last two years can be seen from Table 14.

Besides in-situ development of slums, resettlement of slum dwellers situated in vulnerable sites to an improved location was another strategy adopted by the SMC. In the last two years 3150 slum households have been relocated in nearly ten thousand square metre of area, spread in different parts of the city. These resettlement colonies have been provided with electricity, public stand-posts for water, community toilet blocks, roads and drainage.

Gokul Nagar in Bhatar area of Athwa zone is a resettled slum, which we visited during the survey, is almost 12 kms. from the city. Slums have been shifted from the Nanpura area of the Central zone to widen roads. About 600 households have been given land in this settlement which is a reclaimed municipal dumping site. The slum dwellers have made their new huts according to their own capacity. Land was given free, but no assistance came from the SMC for construction of huts. They pay Rs. 170 as tax to the SMC for the land and other facilities. Housing condition is still bad because most of the occupants are economically very poor and are holding small jobs as rickshaw pullers, porters or petty job holders. The SMC has provided 15 community toilets for ladies and an equal number for males. Six community water stand-posts serve 600 households. They were shifted here two years ago. They are trying to adjust to the new settlement. Even though their new dwellings and living environment are much better than the place where they had lived before, there are still some practical difficulties faced by them. Their complaint was that the number of toilets and water stand-posts provided by the Corporation wasn’t enough. They also complained that the area was not well connected to other parts of the city where a majority of the residents have to go for work. Sufficient job opportunities are also not available for those who earn their living through petty jobs. There is no municipal health care centre or primary school for children in the area. Despite these difficulties they are optimistic that the SMC will gradually remove all their difficulties. They are happy that at least now they own a piece of land and a hut, which they can improve gradually.

The Sanitation drive is very intensive in all types of slums. During our repeat visits to the slums in Ved road area which were the worst affected by plague in 1994, we observed a total change in these settlements not only in terms of physical infrastructure and cleanliness but in the attitude of the people as well. Each slum now has paved roads. The drainage system has been improved considerably and the area which was submerged under 10 feet of water no longer faces any water logging during the rainy season. Each area is spotlessly clean with the municipal sweepers cleaning the outer streets and lanes and the people themselves taking charge of the inner lanes. The civic consciousness has been so enhanced that the slum dwellers no longer throw garbage on the roads. Each dwelling unit keeps a small dustbin in which the household stores the refuse and it is cleaned daily by the sweeper in charge of the area or by the people themselves.

Health care services and surveillance system presently being followed by the SMC is more rigorous in slums than in the other parts of the city. Setting up of urban health centres duly equipped with doctors and health workers is a new initiative which has been introduced in the city. There are 14 such centres which cater primarily to the poorer areas. In the budget of the present financial year, 8 additional health centres are proposed to be set up in different parts of the city. Each municipal health worker is responsible for the health requirements of 5,000 households. She takes care of all facets of health care - promotional, preventive and curative. She is also responsible for immunisation of children in slums and poorer localities. She takes care of all health needs of the people of the locality assigned to her and can refer any patient directly to the hospital in case of an emergency. These health and sanitation measures have had a positive impact on the environmental sanitation and health status of the slum dwellers. This was evident not only from the municipal health records but was also observed by us during our field visit. The same sentiments were echoed by the residents themselves during our conversations with them. According to them, their children no longer fall prey to malaria and gastro-enteritis as often as before.

Table 14

Environment Improvement of Slums in SMC, 1996-’98

To extend the sewerage and drainage facilities in the congested slums, where the inner lanes were barely 3 feet wide, the Corporation needed the co-operation of the people in the form of their consent to demolish some parts of their dwelling units. The slum dwellers, in most cases, not only agreed but also came forward to sacrifice parts of their land and dwelling for the common good. In many cases they themselves demolished parts of their huts in order to facilitate the project of the SMC for widening of inner lanes for carrying the service lines. Shah Bhagal is one such renovated slum where we interacted with the local people during the recent visit. The inner lanes of the slums, which used to be 3 feet wide where one person could barely walk, have been widened to almost 10 feet. The open drains which used to carry both sullage and storm water have been laid under the ground. The people were very happy as there was no water logging in recent monsoons, whereas before renovation the area used to be under as much as 6 feet of water during the rainy season. As a consequence of these measures, the incidence of water borne diseases has also declined considerably.

Strategies for Action