CPR-CSH Workshop on Urban Sanitation: Assessing Priorities and Options by Meera Mehta of CEPT University, Ahmedabad.
Date: Tuesday, 24 September 2013
Time: 3.45 p.m.
Venue: Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110 021
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Little is known about the outcome of significant government investments being made in urban water and sanitation sector in India. To address this, a Performance Assessment System (PAS) Project was initiated at CEPT University in 2009to develop a sustainable system for monitoring of performance outcomes of urban water and sanitation services. Development and implementation of a sustainable system for the past four years in 419 cities in Gujarat and Maharashtra has enabled state and local governments to track service level outcomes. This experience has shown that assessing urban sanitation requires different benchmarks than those suggested under Service Level Benchmarks (SLB) Initiative by MoUD. For example the reality of urban India is that while 80% of households have access to on-premise toilets, only 30% are connected to a sewerage system, which often lack functional treatment facility. A majority depends on on-site systems, but this is not included in the assessment.Thus, an outcome based framework rather than a technology based one is needed.
To address these issues, a framework for city wide sanitation assessment has been developed for the entire value chain of sanitation, including grey water, storm water as well as solid waste. To ensure sustainability, financing is also considered in assessing sanitation options. Using this framework, the PAS Project has supported development of plans for four cities in Maharashtra to assess a range of options and their implications on service levels and local finances for capital funding and operations. These plans demonstrate that desired service levels can be achieved with investments that are affordable by municipalities and suggest wider policy implications for financing of sanitation.
Meera Mehta is currently a Professor Emeritus at CEPT University and an international consultant with thirty years of experience in water and sanitation, urban development and infrastructure finance. She joined CEPT in 1979 and was the Director of School for Planning before joining the USAID’s FIRE Project in India and later the World Bank, first in India and later with the Water and Sanitation Program in Africa. She has also consulted for a large number of international agencies, national and local governments, leading NGOs (Gates Foundation, WaterAid and HIC) and several infrastructure and housing financial institutions. She is an architect-planner with a PhD in economics.
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This is the forty fourth in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org
