Opinion Municipal musings

But life is bad. There is no public water supply. In fact in most such places,even in the “good” local hotel,it is quite common for muck to come in the bathroom tap that’s fed from groundwater. There is a networked input-output system; there is no drainage and open defecation is common. Housing is coming up apace and the BOD — a polite name for shit — goes back in the open plots and percolates through in time. It is sometimes pumped back into the aquifer. Apart from the traders and farmers the local doctors are also obviously happy. If you raise these issues you are considered grumpy.

The Eleventh Plan has a very sage sentence on the “coverage of urban population with water supply facilities had not been very impressive”. Ahem. It is also unhappy on sanitation and,living up to the planners’ reputation for being practical,gives some statistics to show that the smaller a town is the worse off it is. They say that in 1994 there was an accelerated water supply programme for small towns.

The plan now is in a PPP mode. There does not seem anything special seen for small towns. I suspect what is called the viability gap is much larger there. Everybody is so happy making money for the first time in their civilisational history that I am not quite clear who will lead the PPP brigade. Where is the water going to come from anyway? Land use planning in the sense that transport and other infrastructure should be built up where it is possible,and habitations around it — is infra dig,being relegated to “socialist mindsets”. In some of the towns I went to and raised these questions asking for initiatives (PPPs),I get a mouthful: “You know sir,the real problem is that those who come from outside are not interested. When they come they say they are vegetarians and don’t drink,but soon spoil our culture.”

The problem is in a sense getting more acute. This column has argued that urbanisation has moved much faster than anticipated: 1.1 million persons in Gujarat,for example,live in places which have all the characteristics of towns in 2001,but are not declared as such. This was happening slowly; now it is an avalanche. It is of some importance that we anticipate the movement of workers from villages to cities. The process may not be benign as I want it to be,but it should at least not be cruel. I am an unrepentant admirer of NREGA and food security,but when that poor mother comes to a small town with her girl child she must have the conditions where what she gets from the food she earns go to her vitals.

There is the environmental angle too,but we can’t push too many things at one time. Suffice it to say that many of the lakes and rivers which gave towns small and big,water for drinking and sanitation are now drains,as the pollution guys tell us every year with frightening data. And like me if you love to go to the backwaters at least every odd year,here is what Dr S. Anbumani and his gang at the Indira Gandhi Centre of Atomic Research have to tell us on the cytogenetic damage in “fishes” inhabiting the backwaters of Kalpakkam: “DNA damage due to chronic low dose exposures to chemicals and other environmental mutagens through erythrocyte cytome assay.” They too have the

Bengali failing of saying that the plural of fish is fishes,but don’t say they did not warn us.

The writer,a former Union minister,is chairman,Institute of Rural Management,Anand

express@expressindia.com