This follow-up study on Surat was made possible due to the ‘Habitat and Environment Committee’ (HEC), of the ‘Habitat International Coalition’ (HIC). I am thankful to Mr. Malik Gaye, Co-ordinator, to HEC for inviting me to participate in the HEC’s case study documentation programme and for accepting my study proposal. A small grant from HEC facilitated the field survey and report preparation.

I am extremely grateful to Mr. S. Jagadeesan, present Commissioner of the Surat Municipal Corporation and all his colleagues for rendering co-operation and providing information and opinion during interview despite their busy schedule. I offer my special thanks to Ms. P. M. Dordi, Co-ordination Officer and P.S. to Commissioner for providing all logistical support during my field visit.

Preparation of the case study report in a very short time would not have been possible without the able assistance of my colleague, Ms. Shikha Shukla. I greatly appreciate her diligence.

3 April, 1998

New Delhi.

Co-ordinator, Urban Studies Department

Institute of Social Sciences

Acknowledgements

Summary of the Experience

Chapter I Introduction 6

Chapter II Study Setting - The Surat City

Chapter III Introduction of the Main Actor and 17

Chapter IV Solid Waste Management and Public Health Programmes 21

of the SMC – Post Plague Actions and Results

Chapter V Strategies for Action 41

Chapter VI Reactions and Responses of Other Actors and Stakeholders 48

Chapter VII Impact, Sustainability and Negative Aspects of the 51

References 56

This is a study of an urban local government, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC), for urban environment improvement through solid waste management. The Surat city, situated in Gujarat, a state in the western part of India, is an economically prosperous commercial and business centre with a large number of migrant population contributing to its cultural diversity. In September 1994, the city faced an unprecedented crisis when the killer disease PLAGUE broke out in the city. The occurrence of plague in the wake of the 21st century was attributed to, inter alia, the failure on the part of the municipal government, that is the Surat Municipal Corporation in ensuring environmental cleanliness. Surat was considered as one of the filthiest cities in India.

However, in May 1995, a new programme was launched by SMC under a new leadership to clean the city through waste management. The programme created an enormous impact on the cleanliness, which resulted in a significant improvement in the health status and quality of living environment. So much so that Surat’s image was transformed from one of the filthiest to the second cleanest city in the country.

The present study is an enquiry into the SMC’s success. It brings into focus the post-plague environmental cleanliness strategies and actions followed by the SMC, their impact, sustainability and other issues.

Multi-pronged strategies adopted by the SMC to achieve the programme goals, include:

• Streamlining of functional, administrative, financial and technological aspects within SMC;
• Awareness creation and capacity building of the municipal staff and city population, especially weaker section;
• Inviting private sector participation in garbage management;
• Introduction of a very well orchestrated garbage removal and disposal schedule;
• Educating the public and issuing of instruction for the correct way of garbage disposal;
• Special focus on cleanliness and infrastructure development in slums;
• Better co-ordination between elected wing and executives wing of the Corporation;
• Quick decision making through administrative decentralisation;
• Carefully planned grievance redressal, monitoring and surveillance system; and
• Need based technological improvement, and such others.

• The programme has created tangible impact on cleanliness, living environment and awareness level leading to significant improvement in the mortality and morbidity;
• Surat experiment has now become a model within and outside the country, which several city governments are trying to replicate;
• A partnership approach between public and private sector, citizens and community is slowly emerging.

• Since the programme started in the aftermath of plague, achieving of immediate and tangible results through strict administrative actions was the implementation strategy. Community participation and NGO involvement in the planning and implementation was never attempted on a large scale.
• Enforcement of environmental discipline through punitive actions, like administrative charges, is still continuing. This indicates lower level of participation and awareness. This may create sustainability problems in future.
• Good leadership, which is the hallmark of the programme success, makes it vulnerable. Unless the system accepts community involvement as a larger strategy, continuity of the programme may be in jeopardy in future in the absence of a committed leader.

India is a rapidly urbanising country with its share of urban population consistently rising over the decades. While at the beginning of this century only 10.48 per cent of the total population lived in urban areas, the proportion increased to 17.29 per cent in 1951 and, according to the 1991 census, 25.72 per cent or 217 million of the country’s 844 million population lived in urban areas. Urbanisation is also an important indicator of economic growth in a country. It is significant that the contribution of the urban sector in India’s GDP has consistently grown from 29 per cent in 1950-’51 to 47 per cent in 1980-’81 and is expected to cross 60 per cent by 2001 (Planning Commission, 1992).

However, with growing urbanisation, the emergence of the gap between demand and supply of infrastructure has become a hard reality. This can be attributed to the fact that the pace of urbanisation far exceeds the growth of urban services. As the Indian National Report, Habitat II mentions, "The major environmental concerns in an urbanising India relate to high levels of water pollution due to poor waste disposal, inadequate sewerage and drainage and improper disposal of industrial effluents. Air pollution levels are rising mainly because of congested streets, poorly maintained vehicles, fuel burning and industrial activities. The dumping of solid wastes in low lying areas contributes to land and ground water pollution and high levels of noise pollution arise out of vehicular traffic, industrial operations, construction, etc." (Government of India, 1996, p. 15).

In the Indian administrative structure the responsibility of providing basic amenities and a clean environment in the cities rests with the third tier of the government, i.e., the municipal authorities. However, municipal authorities are generally found wanting in fulfilling these responsibilities because of various factors including financial deficiencies, inadequate enterprise, political interference from the higher levels of government and encroachment on the functions of the local governments by various parastatal agencies.

The Indian Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts in 1992 to empower the rural and urban local governments by according them constitutional status. An appropriate institutional set-up was envisaged in these Acts whereby the local governments, which consist of democratically elected representatives of the people, are supposed to be the prime movers of urban governance. Local governments have been envisaged to be more broad based and representative with reservation of 33 per cent seats for women and proportional seats for the socially backward sections of the population. To fulfil the country’s commitment to the Agenda of Habitat II, Local Agenda 21 and other international and national programmes, the institutional set-up at the local level emphasised by the government envisages the local government at the centre stage with private sector, NGOs, CBOs and other local level organisations as co-actors.

The present report is the study of a local government in the country, viz. Surat Municipal Corporation. This is essentially a follow-up of our previous study (Plague in Surat - Crisis in Urban Governance by Archana Ghosh and Sami Ahmad) which was conducted in December 1994, in the context of the plague epidemic in the city in September 1994. In the context of the politico-cultural situation prevailing at that time in Surat it is significant to note that the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) had no elected body accountable to the people when the calamity struck the city. The earlier study aimed to gauge the level of provision and quality of basic amenities with a view to assess the environmental problems in the city and the local government’s response to them. The following questions formed the core of our enquiry:

1. Is it correct to assume that the Surat tragedy was due to the absence of an elected local government ?
2. Did it occur because of the laxity on the part of the city administration inspite of the presence of an elected Corporation in Surat since 1966 ?
3. If the city administration was indifferent and wasn’t discharging its duties, what were the reasons for the same ?
4. If our concern is for elected city governments, what are the pre-requisites for their effective functioning ? (Ghosh and Ahmad , 1996, p.4)

The study analysed the administrative, political and legal aspects of the Surat Municipal Corporation in great depth. The provision of basic services and people’s participation in solving local problems was also examined to assess the level of self reliance of the community. The study highlighted stark realities in so far as the level of basic services were concerned. It observed that "Though the city’s economic activity has increased manifold through the unprecedented growth of small scale industries in the un-organised sector and through the setting up of some large scale industries by big industrial houses, people’s living conditions have deteriorated to such a large extent that Surat is said to be the dirtiest city of its size in the whole country" (Ghosh and Ahmad, 1996, p.4).

While assessing the role of the city government the study revealed that the SMC had failed to provide basic amenities and services to the people of the city in accordance with their needs and priorities although the city government had the privilege of an almost continuos existence of an elected government. The dismal performance of the SMC seems to nullify the common notion that effective city administration and provision of quality services depends largely on the existence of a strong city government in which democratically elected representatives manage city affairs and are able to take quick decisions in times of need. The occurrence of Plague was not sudden. The environmental degradation in the city, a culmination of long neglect by the local body, was responsible for the outbreak of the plague epidemic.

The above account prepared the background for the present study. The setting is again the city of Surat and main actor is the SMC. What inspired this follow-up study were the developments that seemed to have been triggered off by the SMC in the city since May 1995. The SMC refurbished its image and that of the city within a short time. The Municipal Corporation was dramatically successful in cleaning up the city, and in 1996, Surat was acclaimed as the second cleanest city, next only to Chandigarh, among 100 cities for which a rapid survey was conducted. This survey was based on a 40-point checklist prepared by an environmentalist group of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), a premier organisation working for preserving Indian cultural heritage. Several other independent organisations, media reports, etc. also proclaim Surat as one of the cleanest cities in the country today.

The study aims at identifying the operations of the SMC in garbage disposal and public health management in the post-plague period responsible for its present image. The period under review is from May, 1995 till March, 1998.

The study aims to broadly examine the following aspects:

1. What actions did the SMC take to clean the city through solid waste management and public health measures in order to counter Surat’s image as one of the dirtiest cities in the country ?
2. What strategies were adopted by the SMC to achieve these goals ?
3. What type of administrative restructuring and financial resource management policies were adopted and how these helped the project achieve the desired goal ?
4. What was the role of the beneficiaries and other stakeholders in the entire process ?
5. What results did the project achieve and what impact did it have on the main actors and the community ?
6. Whether the Surat experience had any impact on public policies with respect to garbage disposal at the city level ?
7. What were the positive and negative aspects of the whole process ?
8. What steps have been taken to maintain the sustainability of these initiatives ?
9. Whether this initiative can be replicated elsewhere within or outside the country ?

The study is based on secondary as well as primary sources. For primary data collection an impressionistic survey was conducted by the author in the city, especially in slum localities, in March 1998. Interviews with municipal officials, elected leaders, NGO representatives, elected women representatives, representatives of the industrial and business community and conversations with the local people and representatives of poor people in slums provided sufficient inputs to assess the impact of the new initiatives and know their reactions to and role in various aspects of the programme.

Secondary sources comprise our own previous study on Surat. Many other media reports, articles and news items which were published both during and after the outbreak of plague and published and unpublished documents of the SMC served as a vital source of secondary information.

The report has seven chapters. Chapter II gives an overview of the Surat city. The profile of Surat city in terms of its physical setting, demographic, social and economic context has been presented in this chapter. Chapter III introduces the main actor, the SMC and defines the programme context. Chapter IV deals with the role of the SMC in managing the urban environment especially with respect to garbage collection and public health services including water supply and sanitation. Its new programme initiatives, roles and performance in the post plague period from May 1995 onwards have been contrasted with the pre-plague scenario. The administrative and financial strategies adopted by the local government to strengthen the delivery system of the specific services have been discussed in Chapter V. Reactions and responses of the other actors and stakeholders have been presented in Chapter VI. Chapter VII concludes the report with a critical overview of the whole process in terms of the positive and negative aspects of the results achieved, sustainability and scope for replication of the efforts in different settings and lessons learned.

Surat city is located in the southern part of Gujarat at 21"+ 12' N latitude and 72"+ 52' E longitude on the southern bank of river Tapi (Annex I). The Arabian Sea coastline is on its west at a distance of 14 miles by water along river Tapi and 10 miles by road along Dumas. It is located at a height of 13 meters above mean sea level. The city forms a major urban core in the Ahmedabad – Bombay regional corridor, centrally placed between both the settlements, at a distance of 260 kms. north of Bombay and 224 kms. south of Ahmedabad.

The area has a gradual slope towards the western and southern part of the city having a natural drainage system towards river Mindhola. The river Tapi flows through the city dividing it into two parts. The pattern of the Kakrapar canals indicates the alignments of the natural slopes from north-east to south-west. Surat experiences monsoon rain ranging between 50 inches and 70 inches every year. The walled city is low lying resulting in the entire area getting water logged during rainy season.

Surat was originally established on the banks of river Tapi which a fort on the eastern bank and a Custom House on the northern side of the fort. In the initial years, activities were concentrated in the inner walled city. The wall was constructed in 1664 and the area within the walled city measured 440 acres. The entrances to the walled city were through 12 gates. The outer wall was constructed in 1707 enclosing an area of 1818 acres.

In the beginning of the 20th century Surat started experiencing the growth of sub-urban areas namely, Udhna, Athwa and Phulpada along the various corridors opened up through the various gates. On account of such a development, the physical expansion of the town was primarily directed towards the five main corridors, namely, Katargam and Amroli in the north, Kamrej road in the east, Udhana road in the south, Rander - Adajan in the west and Dumas road in south-west. The city, as a result of such development, had a radial pattern.

Today’s Surat city is an outcome of the expansion of the city’s limits at various intervals geared to accommodate the additional population and the increasing economic activities. In the year 1664 the city was limited to the inner walled city covering an area of 1.78 sq. kms. In 1707, with the construction of the outer wall, the area of the city increased to 7.36 sq. kms. For the next almost 250 years the increase in the city area wasn’t very significant and in 1963 the city covered an area of 8.18 sq. kms. In the same year 13.77 sq. kms. was added to the city area, increasing its total area to 21.95 sq. kms. In the last 33 years the area of the city increased by six times to an area of 112.27 sq. kms. (Annex II)

The city has a mixed land use pattern. The entire walled city has a concentration of several small and medium scale industries. A significantly large proportion of the total city area is vacant and agricultural land occupies 14 per cent of the total area of the city. Figure 1 depicts the present land use pattern in the city.

Figure 1

Surat is India’s twelfth and Gujrat’s second most populous city. The city is one of the 11 cities in the country which attained metropolitan status in 1991 census by crossing the one million mark.

Surat has experienced a rapid population increase in the last two census decades (1971-’81 and 1981-’91). During the decade 1971-’81 the population of the city grew at a rate of 85.35 per cent. This was the highest among the 23 existing metropolitan cities. In the following decade the city again witnessed a remarkably high population growth rate of 66.01 per cent (Table 1). The present population of the city is estimated to be around 2 million. In addition there is a floating population of 0.5 million.

Table 1

Population Growth in Surat City - 1951 to 1991

Figure 2

At the state level Surat ranks second only to the capital Ahmedabad, which has a population of 3,297,655 (Census of India, 1991). These two cities account for 34 per cent of the total urban population of the state. The city experienced an increase in the density of population despite an increase in area between 1971 and 1981. However, in 1991, the density declined due to a proportionally larger increase in the area compared to the population. In 1971, the city, with a population of 4,93,001, was spread over an area of 33.80 sq. kms. resulting in a density of 14,586 persons / sq. km. In 1981, the density increased to 16,450 persons / sq. km. but it decreased to 13,648 persons / sq. km. in 1991.

Surat city can be broadly classified into three parts; the old city covering an area of 8.18 sq. kms.; the inner periphery and rander zone spread over an area of 47.37 sq. kms. and the outer periphery comprising of the newly developed areas covering 55.61 sq. kms. Although the population and density in the inner city had increased from 1971 to 1981 a decreasing trend has been observed in these variables in 1991. This resulted in a corresponding increase in the density in the inner periphery. This trend points out the shift of population from the inner city due to extreme congestion, dilapidated buildings, over-stressed civic infrastructure and an overall deteriorating quality of life along with increasing land values. Despite these processes the inner city still has the highest density among the three zones with as many as 51,929 persons per sq. km. The inner periphery and the Rander zone have emerged as the focus of population concentration during 1981-’91 with the population and density almost doubling during the same period. While the proportion of population in case of the inner city decreased from 77 per cent in 1971 to 28 per cent in 1991, it increased in the inner periphery from 23 per cent to 43 per cent during the same period. The outer periphery which has emerged as the current focus of population growth, accounted for 29 per cent of the total city population and has the lowest density with 7,911 persons per sq. km.

The economic importance of Surat dates back to the thirteenth century when it was an important port on the banks of river Tapi. However, it has undergone tremendous changes in its economic characteristics ever since. The 1961 census classifies it as a "manufacturing town with moderate services and low trade and transport". According to 1991 census, although manufacturing is still the most important sector, with 61 per cent of the main workers engaged in this sector, the service industry is fast emerging as a dominant economic unit with 36.75 per cent of the workers.

The industries in Surat are dominated by small scale manufacturing units including diamond cutting, textiles, zari (gold thread), dyeing and printing. Initially, the city’s economy depended primarily on zari and artificial silk industry which were largely home based and run by migrant artisans. These industrial units largely cater to the domestic market. Diamond cutting and polishing which became dominant activities in the city much later are largely export oriented and Surat produces 30 per cent of India’s turnover in the diamond trade.

Besides small scale industries, there are five industrial estates established by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation in and around the city. Many modern mega industries have also been set up in these areas because of availability of natural gas from Bombay High. These industries include plastics, chemicals, engineering products, fertiliser, textile processing, dyeing machines and others.

In 1991 Surat district had 21,359 industrial units of which 19,352 units were located in Surat city alone. According to recent estimates, around 45,000 small and big units in the textile sector with an approximate investment of Rs. 4000 million are giving employment to 1,50,000 people. Diamond cutting and polishing is also a labour intensive industry employing around 2,50,000 workers or 50 per cent of 0.5 million workers, in more than 1,00,000 units operating in the city. There are 6,610 zari industries which employ more than 15,000 workers. Besides, there are ancillary industries like dyeing, printing, textile machinery etc. which employ another 85,000 people. Because of this massive expansion in the industrial activities employment in this sector has grown at a yearly compound rate of 10.36 per cent during 1990-’93 and the number of working factories increased at a rate of 4.57 per cent during the same period.

Large scale migration from all parts of the country has resulted in a mixed population in the city with people belonging to different socio-cultural and religious backgrounds. Migrants constitute nearly 60 per cent of the total city population. These processes have resulted in the absence of an integrated social and cultural setting for the city. People come to this city from all parts of the country to work and do evince much concern for the city. The vast majority of the city’s population is Hindu (80 per cent). Only 17 per cent of the population is Muslim. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes account for approximately 9 per cent of the city’s population.

The economic and industrial character of the city is also reflected in a very low sex ratio. Surat has the lowest sex ratio among all the six major cities of the state of Gujarat.. Further, the city has experienced a steady decline in the sex ratio over the years i.e., from 903 in 1971 to 859 in 1981 to 845 in1991. The declining sex ratio in Surat can be mainly attributed to the rapid industrialisation in the city during the last three decades which resulted in selective male migration from different parts of the country who generally come alone leaving their families behind. The total literacy rate prevailing in the city is 64 percent as against 52 per cent for the country as a whole. Female literacy, however, is much lower at 56 per cent compared to male literacy of 70 per cent. Even female participation in the work force is very low, with only 6 per cent of women engaged in economic employment as opposed to 58 per cent males.