Big city blues

Gujarat now stands second among the country8217;s most urbanised States. Thirty-five per cent of the State8217;s population today lives in its urban areas and it is likely to reach 40 per cent by the turn of the century. And over one-third of the urban population in Gujarat lives in slums.

8220;Infrastructural pressures and changing demography of larger cities caused by inter and intra-State migration would also manifest in several other forms, ranging from social conflicts, serious health hazards and further marginalisation of a large section of the urban poor,8221; says Biswaroop Das, a senior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, Surat.

Six major cities 8212; Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar 8212; together added as many as 22 lakh people to their population charts between census years 1981 and 1991. And at present, there are over 14 lakh slum-dwellers living in as many as 1,600 colonies in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat. Das says it8217;s because of the 8220;abysmal state of urban management.8221;

The slum areas suffer from a lack of drainage and sewerage systems, given their locations around industrial units and in low-lying areas. The torrential rains this year underlined this problem when water in these areas did not recede for days8211;even during dry spells.

Surat, which saw the outbreak of the plague, is still a problem patch. Notwithstanding the ground-breaking urban management displayed by Surat, its underground drainage system hardly meets the requirement of a little over 30 per cent of households while only over 60 per cent population get water supply. Acknowledges S.R. Rao, who was Surat8217;s municipal commissioner till last week: 8220;We have just made a firm beginning8221;.

He says Rs 800-crore investment is needed to equip Surat with a sound and long-lasting drainage, sewerage and water system.

The problemsand their causes 8212; are no different in Vadodara and Ahmedabad, the two other major industrial centres. Vadodara, which has reported a floating population of a five lakh, generates as much as 140 million litres of waste every day and dumps nearly 42 per cent of it in low-lying channels and rivulets. The city can cater to only a little above 50 per cent of its water requirements, while its road network has been going from bad to worse.

Says former finance minister Sanat Mehta: 8220;We cannot go on like this beyond a maximum of 10 years. Vadodara has been gheraoed by mega industries who use up all its resources taking a very heavy toll on the quality of life of its people.8221; Adds architect Suryakant Patel: 8220;It8217;s time we halted this haphazard growth.8221;

Citing government figures, Patel says the situation is heading towards a point of no return particularly on the Vadodara-Surat axis where investments worth Rs 30,000 crore are expected in the near future.

In Ahmedabad too, the scene is the same. Though brilliant financial management has done wonders to the corporation, most of the industrial areas in the eastern belt of Ahmedabad have almost no sewerage network. 8220;Forty per cent of all towns in the State have no sewerage facility at all,8221; says Das.

What has compounded the problems is the burgeoning number of illegal buildings. In Vadodara, State town planning department granted building permissions on storm-water drains and in Surat, buildings have come up on gutter lines.

Says Vadodara Municipal Commissioner Vilasini Ramachandran: 8220;The municipal corporation alone cannot bring about changes in absence of a proper coordination by town planning departments. For instance, Gujarat Slum Clearance Board and Gujarat Housing Board themselves have extended their constructions on storm-water drains in Vadodara.8221;

Government agencies in Gujarat barely meet 20 per cent of housing requirements, leaving a huge backlog of shelter in large cities like Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat and Rajkot. Thanks again to a skewed agenda, not a single city in the State satisfies the water requirements of its population, while industries mostly get uninterrupted supply.

If this skewed pattern continues, as it is most likely with the increasing investment, Gujarat8217;s cities may be on the road to becoming crowded and unclean urban jungles.