Location: Siddharthapura is one of largest shanty settlements in the Colombo municipality. This is located close to southern boundary of the city about 6 kilo meters away from the city centre. Its location is very favourable for low income families for their livelihood - informal sector employments and other services such as schooling, hospital, market and transportation facilities. Section - A is a part of siddharthapura a large shanty settlement which is surrounded by two major canals - Wellawatta canal and Dehiwala canal ( map no.2). The total settlement is divided into four Community Development Council areas - A, B, C and D. Section - A is situated between sections B and C. One of the highways in the country (High Level Road) runs very close to Siddharthapura settlement.

General Characteristics of the Project Areas: Siddharthapura was a squatter settlement grown over the last 45 years, on a low lying marshy land. Originally this land was a private property belonged to a family. It had been given it on short term lease for people who were engaged in green - leaves (vegetable) cultivation. In 1940s, several people had built temporary houses illegally on the canal reservation in order to provide cheaper housing for workers who were working in a textile factory located close to the settlement. By 1978, this settlement had grown to a large settlement. Majority of the community were migrants to the city and they were having employment mainly in the textile factory and municipal markets. In the latter part of 1970s, CMC identified this settlement for the UNICEF assisted UBS program. Siddharthapath community for the first time received few common water taps to obtain drinking water and common toilets from the UBS program.as sanitary facilities within the settlement.

Due to the influence of the Ceiling on Housing and Property Law of 1973, tenants in shanty houses became de-factor owners. A part of the private marshy land had been encroached by some families because of the lack of space on canal reservation. In 1978, this community formed a Community Development Council with the help of CMC in order to get people's participation for UBS program. All these activities gave a lot of hopes for this community in order to stay at the same location. In 1980, Urban Development Authority under its Slum and Shanty Upgrading program, Siddharthapura community was identified as a suitable settlement for a permanent, on-site upgrading project. The first systematic enumeration survey in the settlement was made by the UDA in 1979*. Vacant, low lying marshy land located in adjacent to the shanties was reserved for a low income hosing project. In 1986, the total settlement including all vacant lands was acquired by the National Housing Development Authority to implement a low income housing project on self-help basis under the Million Houses Program. Area identified for the low income housing project was divided into 4 areas based on the physical and social boundaries identified by the community and the NHDA. These four areas latter became separate projects with four community development councils. Sections A and B were allocated for original shanty dwellers, sections C and D were earmarked for

families identified for relocations from other areas of city.

According to the enumeration survey carried out in division 'A' of the settlement in 1994 the, total population was 1209. There were 267 families who lived in 212 housing units. There were about 55 families who were living with parents or their relatives as extended households. The average family size was about 5 persons. Persons per housing unit was 5.7. Population by age groups are given below.

Table No. 4

Population by Age Groups

Source: NGO-WSSDS, Colombo - 1994

The young and economically active persons account about 80% of the total population. Unlike low income settlements in other towns, this is fairly mixed community.

Table No. 5

Ethnicity by No. of Families

Source: NGO-WSSDS, Colombo, 1994.

More than half of the families are earning their living from informal sector activities such as casual labourers, street hawkers and most women are working as helpers in middle and high income houses around the settlement.

Table No. 6

Source of Income by Families

Source: NGO-WSSDS, Colombo, 1994.

As far as income is concerned only 202 out of 267 families have responded to the income question. Some families are living on the savings earned working in oil riched middle- east countries. People who working as labourers in CMC have regular and permanent income. The average family income of this community is Rs. 1881/= (US $ 37) per month.

In 1985, under the MHP, NHDA started shanty upgrading project in the settlement. Shanty upgrading projects basically consist of following components:

Until 1987, most of the families were living on the land reservations earmarked by the government for the canal maintenance and for a proposed 100 feet wide road along the canal bank. Under the MHP, it was decided to relocate this community to the adjacent land and to provide at least 50 s meters (2 perch) plot per household for those who had got a house number and a shanty identification card given by the NHDA. The government acquired the private low lying marshy land and reclaimed to allocate plots according to a planned layout. None of the families in this settlement was relocated in the process of land regularization. The CDC in this area has played a very active role and facilitated the land blocking out and plot allocation process.

In order to minimize the relocation of poor families from their existing locations where people can easily find employment and other services, the UDA declares settlements identified for shelter upgrading as special project areas. According to the UDA law normal planning and building regulations are not applicable to the areas declared as special project areas. It has been able to accommodate more families in upgraded settlements by introducing minimum planning standards for low income housing schemes. Therefore, Siddharthapura -'A' layout is such that four 20 feet wide roads connected to the municipal road provide main access to the settlement. All others are 12 feet wide roads that is the minimum width needed for a single vehicular traffic. Plots are arranged as clusters - 4 to 12 of plots in a raw, back to back. There is a 4 feet wide back alley for the provision of service lines. Plots have been arranged into 15 clusters. Physical layout of the settlement has been extremely useful to organize community into small groups or clusters based on the amenities available for sharing and common maintenance. A quarter acre of land has been allocated for a community centre. The settlement is linked to other areas through four main roads.

People themselves were organized in an informal way mainly to face natural disasters such as flooding and epidemic and to assist neighbours when a member of family is dead. Most popular people's organization in low income settlement is funeral assistance society. Members deposit a small fee with the society on a regular basis to assist families in such occasions.

This community was organized for the first time by the local authority in order to provide health facilities under UBS program in 1978. As in other low income areas of Colombo, People formed a Community Development Council (CDC) for Siddhartapath shanty settlement. The CDC is an elected body of the low income residents in the area. Executive committee of the CDC consists of President, Secretary, Treasurer and five or six committee members. According to the constitution which had been introduced by the CMC, executive committee elected for a period of one year. There were 300 CDC in Colombo in 1983 (CMC). Initially such a large network of CDCs were in operation in order to cover all low income families in the Colombo under the UBSP.

In 1984/85 under the MHP, the government had promised these families to give land ownership on 30 year lease. The land has been allocated on a planned layout but the community has not been the leasehold rights yet. This community can use a card given to each household at the enumeration survey as a temporary tenure document which is recognized by the NHDA, UDA, local authority, Water and Electricity Authorities in the provision of their services. But financial institutions such banks still do not recognize it as a valid legal document for financial transactions. Nearly 90 % of households have built their houses from the loans given by NHDA.

After the UNICEF assisted UBS program (1978), agencies like UDA, NHDA, CAB, and NGOs recognized CDCs as an effective and widely spread grassroots level organization. Siddharthapura CDC was one of most active CDCs in Colombo during the implementation of the UHSP (1985 - 1989). The main activities carried out by the CDC were:

* formulation of building guidelines

The NHDA housing program - mainly confined to the land allocation and the provision of housing loans was completed by 1990. After that there was no agency to continue its upgrading program. But the CDC has been existing until now, as a grassroots level institution to negotiate with external organizations to obtain their basic services and also to manage available environment services. There are four other community organizations which have been formed to look after a particular need of the community. They are Thrift and Credit Cooperative Society, Funeral Assistance Society, Women Savings Groups and a Youth Club. Siddharthapura - A - CDC is the most active and also the people's organization which represents the total community.

Over the last ten years, this community has been able to obtain several basic infrastructure facilities. At the initial stage of upgrading program, people were using common water taps for both drinking and washing purposes. The capacity of water line was not adequate to supply water for all families in the settlement. Generally grassroots level people's organizations have strong relationships with political authorities. People being the basis of constituency, they can obviously force politicians to obtain basic environmental services. Roads, water supply, toilet facilities (sewer connections) and electricity are the basic among the amenities needed for urban low income people. Without any assistance from a particular external agency, CDC at Siddharthapura - A division has been able to augment water supply line through lobbying political authorities in the area. At present, almost all houses have individual private water supply lines with sufficient capacity. Similarly community organization has been able to obtain electricity and toilet facilities. This community does not have a play ground within the settlement. The land allocated for community centre has a small playing space for pre-school children. Road network, including main municipal road and all minor roads have been constructed using compacted-gravel. The major problem in this settlement is the lack of proper drains. Space has been allocated for the drains on all access roads, but they have to be constructed with proper gradients.

Prior to the land regularization and house construction, waste collection and disposal was not considered as a major problem by the community. Families who were living on the canal bank threw household waste either into the canal or on the road.

Until 1986, people's main demand was for the ownership of land. Therefore, it had been difficult for external agencies to motivate people for a systematic household garbage collection and disposal arrangement. Under the UBS program, community organizations were educated on environmental health aspect by the Health Wardens (field level municipal health workers). But it had been difficult even for the CDC to prevent people from throwing garbage into the canal and roads because other environmental problems such lack of toilet facilities, temporary makeshift housing, frequent flooding, lack of drains to discharge household waste water were greater. When people have the fear of eviction in their minds, it is difficult to motivate them for environmental management activities. On the other hand, most of the canals and other water bodies in Colombo were highly polluted because there was no city level program to keep them clean. Not only a part of canal where this settlement was located was unhygienic, but whole network of canal was such. Therefore, the polluted canal further encouraged people to throw their household waste into the canal. Other than the solid waste, many shanty people had built their make shift toilets on water-ways of the canal. More than the solid waste, waste water and human excreta had polluted canals. According to the municipal ordinance and by laws, no municipal services can be extended to the illegal settlements in the city. These regularization had been another constrains that the municipality was not able to provide its regular garbage collection service to the Siddharthapura shanty settlement.

After 1986, Two important development activities took place in Siddharthapura area:

The first activity was done under the Million Houses Program. Except five families, all other families in Siddharthapura received their land about 75 feet away from the canal. The second activity was started in 1991 under the Greater Colombo Flood Protection and Canal Rehabilitation Project. During the last four year-period, Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Cooperation have built retaining walls under the project on either-sides of canal and cleaned it up by dredging the canal bed and removing all wastes from the canal. These two city level programs helped Siddharthapura project to motivate people to a larger extent for organizing community level solid waste management activity.

During the study community members including CDC committee members were interviewed on the existing environmental problems in the area. It was interesting to disclose that solid waste problem was one of the high priorities in the community. A community workshop had been conducted in 1995 in the settlement as a part of the Community infrastructure project of the Ministry of Housing by the Non-Governmental Organizations for Water Supply and Sanitation Decade Services (NGO-WSSDS). This NGO is a apex organization of about 30 small local NGOs who are very much concerned about water and sanitation issues in rural and urban poor settlements. While NGO-WSSDS is assisting its member organizations it has staff to carry out community projects directly from its head office in Colombo. Community's major environmental problems identified at this workshop were;

* lack of drains,

* financial and legal constrains that people have to face at event of obtaining private water supply and electricity connection,

* half completed houses and toilets,

* over-flow of pit latrines and

* there is no systematic arrangement made by the local authority or the CBO,

a.) to empty excreta from private pit latrines (liquid waste) and

b.) to dispose household waste (solid).

* mosquito menace