2.2 Peri-Urban Interface in the Indian context

region in Kolkata’s peri-urban areas. In addition, the last part of this chapter focusses thoroughly on the study region. The study region till the last decade was one of the prominent peri-urban areas of Kolkata. But currently with New Town developing rapidly, this peri-urban areas are slowly integrating and getting squeezed in between the surrounding planned developments. Thus, the last part of this chapter deals with the evolution of the study region, with brief emphasis on the formal-informal relationship here. Additionally, this region has had quite a dark socio-political history, having been less emphasized by the media. Therefore, the primary purpose of this literature review, is to get an understanding of the peri-urban regions to a great extent and also to understand the study region from a socialist perspective and learning the political scene in the region.

2.2 Peri-Urban Interface in the Indian context

In terms of categorizing issues for the peri-urban areas, most of the peri-urban regions in the Global South face identical issues. The greatest issue that needs attention anywhere, is the access to basic services. The fringes of many cities suffer from poor infrastructure and service provision, adding with it the incapacity of the local governments (Dahiya, 2003). The local governments in peri-urban areas lack the administrative capacity to collect, transport and dispose of the waste (Dahiya, 2003). Moreover, lack of sanitary workers and poor financial situation aggravates the solid waste management. Through this study done by Dahiya in 2003, it is also noted that the town of Valasaravakkam in peri-urban Chennai is an example which faces these kinds of issues. In regions like Kathivakkam in the peri-urban regions of Chennai, due to financial issues, the local governments are unable to afford modern waste collection technologies and hence they rely on outdated modes of waste collection, like bullock carts (Dahiya, 2003). This leads to inefficient waste collection and also leads to a large amount of waste not getting collected. Other issues related to waste collection, include the unavailability of dustbins or when the dustbins are not in order. In the towns of Thruvottiyur and Ernavoor in the northern fringes of Chennai, dustbins are not in order, which leads to the accumulation of waste on the street and the vacant plots. This poses a serious threat to the environment and also poses health hazards (Dahiya, 2003). Regions like Valasaravakkam, actually faces major issues in terms of solid waste

management. Due to irregular cleaning and inadequate waste collection, the solid waste often mixes in the drainage channels, which often leads to environmental problems. Furthermore, a lot of waste is also dumped along the roadside, on vacant lands and at the lakeside (Thiruvottiyur municipality) and the along canals and water bodies like Buckingham Canal near Kathivakkam (Dahiya, 2003). These have a long lasting irreversible degrading effect on the natural resources, environment and livelihood. Apart from the environmental degradation caused due to improper dumping techniques, burning of wastes on vacant land causes air pollution, which leads to several health hazards. Not only is the waste produced by peri urban regions an issue, the waste produced by the core city regions of Chennai is also transported and dumped in the peri urban regions, which exacerbates the problems of solid waste management to a great extent.

Another issue in terms of the basic services that the water supply. The poor physical accessibility of peri urban areas limits the provision of water supply. Lack of proper water supply in peri-urban regions firstly leads to inadequate water supply and water consumption, which further leads to health hazards in the long run. The urbanization driven by industrialization in the city’s periphery, causes higher consumption by domestic household users, industries and also by irrigation services. This overconsumption leads to a water scarcity in the peri-urban areas and also in the surrounding rural areas. This water scarcity strongly hampers the daily life of the residents of the regions who have to face difficulties because of lack of drinking water and lack of water supply. There are however many approaches that have been tried out to tackle this. There are certain decentralised approaches which have a greater user involvement and less capital intensive solutions. These decentralised approaches are economically and environmentally sustainable for water supply and sanitation services for the peri-urban

areas.

The peri-urban interface in the Indian context has implications also from a socioeconomic viewpoint. The uneven urbanization patterns causes a shift in the economic activities. Peri-urbanization causes an emergence of informal and illegal activities in the grey space between urban and rural. This heterogeneity is subject to fast changes over time. This peri-urbanization in the Indian context creates a situation, where there is a co-existence or an intermingling between the small farmers, the informal settlers, industrial entrepreneurs and the urban middle class commuters. The presence of

multiple socio-economic growth, in a way, pushes in more people to these peri-urban regions, which causes a rapid, uncontrolled and sudden population growth which is always unplanned. This uncontrolled population growth generates negative environmental and social effects. This socio-economic heterogeneity is very prevalent in the peri-urban region of Tungi in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (Allen, Dávila, & Hofmann, 2006). There the peri-urban livelihoods are strongly driven by markets, which are more diverse than rural areas. The peri-urban regions of Dar Es Salaam, face the same issues as faced in the Indian or South Asian context, like, lack of infrastructure and basic services (overburdened pipelines and delayed service improvements), lack of regular incomes, inadequate access to natural resources, housing shortage, congestion and health problems.

Apart from the socio-economic angle, there is a multiplicity in terms of land use characteristics. There is a mix of rural and urban characteristics. This mixture also

includes the housing for various income groups, which also includes the section of the people who illegally encroach and in turn causing densification in the city’s peripheral regions. Mix in the land uses, also leads to poor transportation links which is another major issue in most Indian metropolitan centres.

Thus, as already stated previously, in the Global South, the rapid rates of urbanization in peri-urban areas, leads to urban issues which arise predominantly due to poor management practices leading from discrepancies in the governance. On one hand, there are cases of Chennai and Cairo, which have overlapping agencies governing at the peri-urban region. On the other hand, in the case of Dar es Salaam, there is an institutional fragmentation, which leads to a lack of communication between the different administrative agencies (Allen, Dávila, & Hofmann, 2006). As stated by Annapurna Shaw, lack of clarity in the governance structure is one of the main reasons for the neglect of the peri-urban regions. Thus, for a better governance, it is a responsibility of the other actors, like the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), grass roots organizations (GROs) and the private sector to take up responsibility. As stated through Beall’s works regarding solid waste management in the peri urban regions in Bangalore in India and Faisalabad in Pakistan, civic engagement is a key tool in solving these issues. Civic engagement includes the formation of neighbourhood committees and creating forums for community development and involving citizens in identifying issues, and prioritizing

their needs as per their requirements. Beall has worked on the social capital framework in these cities, which in a way transfers the responsibility from the upper tiers to the lower order institutions and the citizens themselves.

A very good case example to support the community based initiative is in the peri-urban regions of Chennai in Tamil Nadu. There is a women-led civil society, Shri Shankara Nagar Mahalir Manram (SSNMM) in the town of Pammal in the peripheries of Chennai (Shaw, Peri-Urban Interface of Indian Cities : Growth, Governance and Local Initiatives, 2005). SSNMM took the initiative to provide a community based solid waste collection service. In Pammal, earlier there was extremely low levels of waste collection, primarily because of – lack of sanitary workers, poor financial situation of the local government and the lack of a proper disposal site. To tackle these issues related to SWM, the SSNMM formed by 10 women, started literally from the grass-root levels, that is, from the household levels. Their strategy ranged from collection of the household waste and instead of just dumping the waste, SSNMM came up with their own interventions of recycling and treating of the waste. Earlier, the residents faced ill consequences like foul odour, flies and insects, whenever the garbage was not cleared on time. However, the newer interventions of recycling and treating the waste by the SSNMM is advantageous on many fronts. Firstly, there is a much reduced scope of environmental degradation ranging from openly littered waste. Also, there is a lower risk of health hazards. These interventions have also created newer forms of

employment among the local people.

In another instance, Joka, a census town located in the southern peripheral region of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), also faced major issues in terms of solid waste management (Shaw, Peri-Urban Interface of Indian Cities : Growth, Governance and Local Initiatives, 2005). Contrary to the case of Pammal, which had a civic status and was under a town panchayat, Joka was under the village administration, under the Joka gram panchayat, outside the purview of the KMC area. The major problems faced here, were the lack of proper landfill sites for garbage disposal. As per KMC’s orders KMC’s dustbins could not be used outside its jurisdiction area, and Joka being a Gram Panchayat was forbidden from using KMC’s dustbins. Previously, there have been instances where the residents of Joka were disallowed from using KMC’s vats or dustbins, owing to the reason that the existing infrastructure was already strained by population growth within the KMC. Thus to cater to this accumulating garbage issues

on the roads, the residents of the Diamond Park Area in Joka and a local NGO, JokaOrganization for Protection of Environment and Development (Joka-OPED) decided to initiate action in this matter. In spite of many efforts, there has not been a very effective outcome in the situation in Joka.

The major contrast between the 2 case examples of Pammal and Joka, is that Pammal’s case is much more successful with respect to Joka due to many reasons. In Pammal, SSNMM’s activities were developmental and action oriented, and thus materialized. In Joka, the main activities have been awareness raising and has solely increased environmental awareness among the people. Joka has not been able to bring any major changes at the policy levels (Ansbaek & Roiha, 2003).

As the Indian metropolitan cities are spreading outwards, the peri-urban regions in these cities are gaining more prominence in the last decades. The main motive of policy makers now, should be to act and provide enhanced basic environmental and infrastructural services in these regions. However, to provide these requirements, local level initiatives will surely be successful. Hence, a clear partnership between the local level initiatives and government support is the ultimate solution for effectively governing the peri-urban interface in the Indian context.