Water governance in peri-urban areas, Pg7

Key Highlights:

• India's peri-urban areas face significant water and sanitation challenges due to their transitional status between rural and urban areas.
• The number of Census towns in India has increased by 178% in the last two decades, from 1,362 to 3,784.
• In peri-urban Hyderabad, toxic leachate from waste dumps has contaminated groundwater, impacting residents' health.
• By 2047, India will require 230 million new housing units and 500 new cities, highlighting the urgency of addressing peri-urban issues.
• The article suggests five key actions, including resolving the governance vacuum, securing drinking water sources, and launching a Swachh Bharat Mission 3.0 focused on peri-urban sanitation.

Detailed Insights:

• Peri-urban areas often experience a governance vacuum, lacking the robust infrastructure and services of cities while also losing the traditional support systems of rural areas.
• The 74th Constitutional Amendment envisioned the constitution of Nagar Panchayats for all Census towns, but this has not been fully implemented, leaving a governance gap.
• Securing drinking water sources involves protecting catchments from encroachment, preventing solid waste dumping, and adopting community-driven sanitary inspections.
• A Swachh Bharat Mission 3.0 should prioritize faecal sludge and septage management, including building treatment plants and deploying GPS-equipped desludging trucks.
• Decentralized wastewater treatment technologies offer a sustainable solution, but require policy support, single-window clearances, and government-backed guarantees to scale up.
• The Uttarakhand model of blended finance, combining state risk-bearing with concessional loans, can be replicated to finance peri-urban water and sanitation infrastructure.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Peri-urban: The transition zone between rural and urban areas, characterized by mixed land use and rapid population growth.
• Census Town: A settlement that is not formally declared as a city but has urban characteristics like population density and economic activity.
• Faecal Sludge Management: The safe collection, transportation, treatment, and disposal of human waste from on-site sanitation systems like septic tanks.