Author: cprindia

THE THIRD ARTICLE IN A FOUR-PART SERIES ON INDIA’S AIR POLLUTION IN THE HINDUSTAN TIMES
AIR POLLUTION ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Do we know what pollutes Delhi/NCR air and the surrounding region? The answer is a very highly qualified ‘yes’. We know enough to inform action now, even while it is important to keep filling in the knowledge gaps. While there are multiple pollutants, in this article we focus on PM 2.5 or very small particles that experts agree are a major health hazard in India.

In examining sources, one fact stands out: There are at least four discrete sectors that each substantially contribute to Delhi’s pollution (see figure): industry; transport; biomass and waste burning; and dust. Delhi’s air problem is so hard to solve in part because it is not a single problem; it is a 4 X 25% (+/-10%) problem, with at least four implications.

First, because Delhi’s air is already about 13 times the WHO safe levels, we have to make progress on all these sources if Delhi’s air is to be made safe. Even completely removing one or two of these sources will not achieve the objective.

Second, because all sources have to be addressed, it is pointless to debate which source is more or less at fault. At different times different sources predominate — crop burning in October, dust in the summer, transport year around — but on an annual basis, all are important. As a result, for Delhi’s citizens to point accusing fingers at farmers, or transport interests to point fingers at industry, and vice versa, ignores the data — all sources have to be reduced. Also, arguing whether most sources are within-NCR or largely outside NCR is also irrelevant — both must be addressed.

Third, a positive feedback loop — successful actions leading to public support for more action — is extremely hard to build. For example, a heroic effort to limit truck traffic may lead to reduced emissions, but this may not be perceptible; trucks are only a portion of all transport, which is only a quarter of all pollution. Wind and other atmospheric conditions further complicate matters. As a result, painful and disruptive measures may be successful but not appear so, and arouse a backlash. To counter this requires public patience and clear management of public expectations.

Finally, a sector-by-sector approach to solving Delhi’s air has the greatest chance of success — each distinct sector and sub-sector has different technical, regulatory and political characteristics. For example, power plants require high-level regulatory and enforcement solutions, while transport needs attention to behaviour and public procurement to enable a shift to public transport. The political context will also vary: crop burning is linked to agrarian politics, while construction dust involves powerful contractors and poor construction labour. The institutional scale will also differ: industries are regulated by pollution control boards, while RWAs can play a role in managing local waste burning. Air pollution solutions need to be based on understanding source sectors, even while keeping the larger picture in mind.

This point is underscored by a deeper dive into each source sector:
Industry sources are a large share (25-43%) of emissions year-round. About half of these are industrial emissions such as cement and brick kilns, where the main challenge is monitoring and enforcement. The other half are related to power plants and diesel gen-sets that require enforcement but in the longer run rest on cleaner energy sources.

Transport – passenger and freight — accounts for 20-30% of emissions year-round and is growing rapidly with vehicle ownership. For both, infrastructure is needed but for passenger transport, behavioural change is critical.

Biomass and waste burning comprise 20-38% and includes crop burning, waste burning, and household kitchen burning. Crop residue burning is highly seasonally specific and peaks in October; IIT-Kanpur’s study suggests it accounts for 26% of winter emissions. Waste burning is disaggregated throughout the city, but also includes site-specific municipal waste burning in landfills. Household use requires a transition to cooking gas.

Dust includes both construction dust from within NCR and long-range transport of dust from the arid surroundings of Delhi and beyond. Dust is a bigger share of emissions in the summer than in winter; TERI’s study suggests it accounts for 38% of summer emissions.

Air pollution in Delhi-NCR is a complex problem. Addressing it requires urgent, but also deliberate action, in keeping with the nature of the problem. We must recognise we are dealing with a multi-headed problem, that progress on all sources is needed, that we may not see progress immediately but should stay the course, and that solutions need to be tailored to the specific characteristics of each pollution source.

Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at Centre for Policy Research. Sarath Guttikunda is the Founder of Urban Emissions (India), an independent research group, issuing three-day air quality forecasts for all 640 districts in India.

This article is the third in a four-part series on India’s air pollution. The original article, which was published in the Hindustan Times on December 21, 2018, can be found here. For more information on CPR’s work on air pollution, visit the Clearing the Air? project page.

In this Series:

Understanding the Curse of Air Pollution (1/4)

Public Health in India a Casualty of Air Pollution (2/4)

Delhi has a complex air pollution problem (3/4)

Air pollution: India’s waking up, but there’s a long way to go (4/4)

FULL VIDEO OF TALK
URBAN GOVERNANCE URBAN ECONOMY URBAN SERVICES

Watch the full video (above) of the talk by Banashree Banerjee, where she describes the rapid changes that have taken place in Myanmar over the last eight years.

In the talk, Banerjee discusses how the switch to democratic governance, shift to a market economy, and internal regional harmony – in quick succession – led to sharp growth of the overall economy as well as the cities of Myanmar, particularly Yangon.

Banerjee is an independent urban planner and an associate staff member of the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Rotterdam.

The Q&A session that followed can be accessed here.

Read related articles by Banashree Banerjee (and co-author Maartje van Eerd) on building local planning capacity as well as empowering migrant communities to secure housing in Yangon.

CPR FACULTY AND RESEARCHERS ANALYSE
ECONOMY

As the Prime Minister’s move to demonetise 500 and 1000 rupee notes to curb black money continues to play out in the country, find below a curated analysis by CPR faculty.

In You have been warned, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes how demonetisation ‘threatens to institutionalise a new kind of politics’, based on the three central elements of ‘personification, puritanism and punitive imagination’.

Rajiv Kumar writes in The Quint on how the demonetisation of high denomination currency is a ‘game-changer and puts the Indian economy on a radically-diferent trajectory’. In yet another interview to The Hindu Business Line, Kumar explains the benefits of demonetisation for the Indian economy.

G Parthasarathy writes that the move has a positive impact on terrorism by removing counterfeit currency from the market smuggled by Pakistan to ‘its ‘terrorist assets’ in India’.

In Why demonetisation notification is illegal and violates the Constitution, Namita Wahi questions and analyses the legality of the move, and explores it in greater depth in another piece in Live Law. She further breaks it down in the eighth episode of CPR’s podcast ThoughtSpace here.

In Will Modi do a Morarji or a Pandit-ji, Srinath Raghavan historically contextualises demonetisation, while in another article in Livemint, he argues that demonetisation is an ‘unarguably regressive move’ when judged by the standard of whether it advances human freedom or not.

In For informal workers, notebandi equals paisabandi, Mukta Naik, Eesha Kunduri and Manish share findings from a two-week long intensive survey they conducted on how workers in the informal sector were coping with the impact of demonetisation. A more detailed analysis of their findings can be accessed in the seventh episode of CPR’s podcast ThoughtSpace here.

In an earlier episode of the podcast Curbing black money or welfare shock?, Rajiv Kumar analyses the economic fallouts of demonetisation.

In an article in Civil Society, Sanjaya Baru explains how demonetisation is primarily a political move, and that ‘in the end, the politics of demonetisation will trump its economics’.

ACCESS THE WORKING PAPER BY PERSIS TARAPOREVALA
URBAN GOVERNANCE

The newly elected federal Government of India launched the Smart Cities Mission in 2015 with the stated purpose of improving the governance and infrastructural deficiencies that plague Indian cities. Missing, however, in the new programme was a cohesive understanding of a smart city. While the government documentation repeatedly implies infinite liberty for cities to self-define their understanding of ‘smartness’, the actions demonstrate that there is a larger idea of ‘smartness’ that the federal government seeks to implement. It is at this disjunction, between the rhetoric and practice of the Mission, that this paper finds its core research question – ‘What constitutes a smart city in India?’

The Smart Cities Mission stands at a proposed budget of over INR 200,000 Crore (INR 2,000 billion) for 99 cities with a combined population of almost 100 million people and could have a significant impact on the lives of Indians. The magnitude of the project and its potential to affect the lives of citizens as well as the governance and financial structures that regulate municipal life necessitate that the concept of the smart city in India be illuminated. Given the sheer vagueness of the Mission, the core of the paper focuses on providing an empirical reading of the Mission, singularly through government documentation, and delineates the following trends – 1) that the project categories are similar to former urban renewal programmes however individual projects in the Mission are more likely to focus on revenue generation; 2) sources of finances move rapidly from ambitious market-oriented processes back to more traditional state-sponsored urban regeneration plans; 3) the Mission claims to bolster local government but in practice seems to recentralise power away from municipal bodies to state-level bureaucrats; and 4) the Mission claims to represent the voice of its citizenry however the Mission utilises processes of participation that are deeply problematic and benefit privileged sections of society.

The working paper argues that it is imperative for the government and the citizens of India to understand the mechanics of the Mission in order to ensure clarity, accountability and to question whether the current structure of the Mission will achieve its stated goal of improving the governance and infrastructural deficiencies of urban India.

The research has generated a detailed working paper and a compact policy brief.

BLOG SERIES BASED ON A CROSS COUNTRY STUDY ACROSS INDIA, INDONESIA AND MYANMAR
LAND ACQUISITION SOUTH ASIA

As persons affected with land use change grapple with displacement, loss of livelihood and environmental degradation, it becomes clear that they are rendered extremely vulnerable. In their fight for rights, as they employ multiple strategies to make their voices heard and influence decisions of those with power, it becomes important to understand their struggle that displays critical thinking, collective agency and pragmatism.

This blog discusses various stories of such struggles from India, Indonesia and Myanmar. These stories present a granular account of how land use change decisions result in varied set of impacts experienced for years, how these experiences turn into long standing land conflicts, the efforts made by affected communities to seek remedies and the counter efforts they face as governments and projects protect their investments and try to retain control over the narrative of growth and development.

India

Shree Maheshwar Hydro Power Dam, Madhya Pradesh

Maheshwar dam project has seen several investors pulling out of it.

The Maheshwar dam is built in Nimad, the South western region of the state of Madhya Pradesh, 2 km upstream from the town of Mandleshwar. The project is part of the Narmada Valley Development Plan under which 30 large and 135 medium-sized dams have been planned in the Narmada valley. With a generation capacity of 400 Megawatts, the dam put nearly 60,000 acres of extremely fertile agricultural land and over 20 villages under full or partial submergence. A large mass movement, comprising the local communities, farmers and environmental and human rights activists, has been protesting against the project as well as against the NVDP (Narmada Valley Development Plan) in general. The struggle in Maheshwar has been going on for more than 20 years.

Gevra Mines, Chhattisgarh

After March 2019, EAC will evaluate the pollution control measures of Gevra mines and based on it, will decide if the project should continue.

With over 10,000 million tonnes of deposits, the Gevra coal mine is the single largest source of power grade coal in India. The mine has been in operation since 1981, and land acquisition for the project dates back to 1979 with subsequent acquisitions in 2001 and 2009. There have been grievances that the acquisition has led to forced relocation, loss of livelihoods and insufficient compensation. People who were displaced have been resettled to colonies set up very close to the mine, and they complain of water contamination and pollution. In 2012, when it spread over an area of 4942 acres, it was the largest open cast mine in India. Still continuing to be the largest mine, today it has double the land area and spans across 9884 acres (4000 hectares) of land in Korba district of Chhattisgarh. Following an expansion of its production capacity, efforts to acquire more land began in 2014. On May 2, 2016, Korba witnessed a massive protest by SECL (South Eastern Coalfields Limited) against land acquisition for mining. Around 679 people from 41 villages protested at the site of the Gevra Mines. These villagers were all farmers who demanded jobs, rehabilitation and compensation as per the amended Land Acquisition Act. There is a proposal to further increase the capacity of Gevra Mines up to 70 MTPA (Million Tonnes Per Annum) in the near future amidst all the existing unaddressed grievances.

Myanmar

Myaung Pyo resists water woes

Original location of Myaung Pyo village has been razed to extract tin.

Heinda Tin mine in Tanintharyi Region of Myanmar has been in operation since the British Times. After the take-over of the mine by the Thai Company Myanmar Pongpipat and Mining Enterprise, a state-owned company, in 1999, the villagers of Myaung Pyo filed complaints of its ill effects. In 2012, the village was flooded due to the breakage in the mine’s tailing ponds and streaming of sediments from the mine into the local creek. The villagers filed a lawsuit against the mine and demanded compensation for the damages to their property. Alongside, the villagers have been engaging the regional level government to ensure that the mine complies with environmental safeguards. Approaching the company, administrative complaints, lawsuits and international redress—the villagers are reaching out to all possible avenues where mitigation of ill impacts and compensation for past damages is possible.

Thilawa residents brace for upcoming land transformation

Farmers, who would lose land in the second phase of development of the SEZ, hope to be compensated fairly for their losses.

The Thilawa SEZ (Special Economic Zone), located approximately 25 kilometers south of Yangon between Thanlyin and Kyauktan townships, is spread over an area of 2,400 hectares. First phase of the project (spread over 400 hectares) has led to forced displacement of 68 families. The compensation given to them was inadequate and the relocation site lacks basic amenities. The farmers, united as Thilawa Social Development Group (TSDG) reached out to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the project financer, seeking improvements in the relocation site. While the impacts of the first phase are yet to be addressed, second phase of the project has begun. Alongside, individual factories are coming up on the land acquired for the project in the first phase. The land users and SEZ authorities are negotiating compensation for land acquisition in the second phase. In June 2017, 39 families were trapped because the Thilawa town officials had erected a wall around their homes claiming that the land belonged to the government.

Indonesia

Illegal Oil Palm Plantation of Rejeki Alam Semesta Raya in Kapuas

PT RASR has turned the land that was used by community members for planting rubber into an oil palm plantation.

PT RASR initiated oil palm plantation on 7000 ha of community land in Kapuas district of Central Kalimantan. The land was in use by the locals for cultivation of rubber and fishing. This led to an income loss for them. Farmers organised themselves in a group of affected farmers, demonstrated outside the company office and different government offices, registered formal complaints with the Regent and parliament of the district. In violation of the forestry law, the company also took over land in protected forest. This and people’s complaints led to cancellation of company’s permission to use the land. Despite all this, the company continued to work people’s land and forestland in question. After a series of failed mediations, some of the aggrieved farmers decided to reclaim their lands. Since 2016, the farmers have been harvesting oil palm on their lands on and generating income from the activity. However, they still seek a formal recognition from the government of their right over their land.

Community response to Arjuna Utama Sawit’s oil palm operations in Katingan district

Danau Bulat lake is silting up due to drainage canals built by PT AUS

In 2008, PT Arjuna Utama Sawit (AUS) took over land belonging to inhabitants of eight villages of the Katingan district in Central Kalimantan. The local community was using this land for horticulture plantations. PT AUS not only violated the moratorium on use of peatlands, it also dug canals and planted oil palm in peatland forest area as well. It dumped the waste from its oil palm factory into a nearby lake and the Katingan river. The company, although promised plasma agreements to the community, has yet to deliver on the same. Initially, the community did not protest the land grabs aggressively, but later on tried to reach out to the company and bring government’s attention to illegalities committed by the company. However, the company continued its operation ignoring communities’ complaints and efforts. In October 2017, the community members from one of the villages blocked work in PT AUS’s plantation area. They demanded execution of the promised plasma agreements and full details of the plasma scheme provided by the company.

PT AKT: The Biggest mining company of Borneo

PT AKT and PT Marunda Graha use Barito river for transport of coal extracted from over 40,000 hectares of land in Murung Raya

PT Asmin Koalindo Tuhup (AKT), the largest coalmine of Borneo took 2000 hectares of land from six villages of the Murung Raya regency of Central Kalimantan. The villagers, under pressure from the company, agreed to relinquish their agricultural lands at a price much lower than the market rate. Mining activities have led to contamination of the local water sources, the Hingan and Kohung rivers. Villagers have raised their concerns with the company and with local government departments. On losing their land-based livelihoods, the villagers had hoped that the mine would give them employment. In absence of state-sponsored basic infrastructure, they also expected facilities such as clean water, better healthcare arrangements and education from AKT. However, their hopes and expectations have only been met with empty promises. As of January 2018, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia had cancelled its agreement with AKT. In such a scenario, it is unclear who will take responsibility of remedying environmental destruction, offsetting loss of livelihoods and ensuring reclamation of land from which the coal has been mined out.

This is the fifth blog based on the study carried out by the CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program, and supported by a grant from IDRC, Canada.

The other pieces in the series can be accessed below:

Understanding the Impacts of Land Use Change
Understanding the Strategies used to address the impacts of Land Use Change
Understanding the Outcomes and Remedies sought for impacts of Land Use Change
Detailed Studies of cases of Land Use Change Conflicts: Part I
The study reports on India, Indonesia and Myanmar including the above-mentioned case studies in full and an overview of the study’s methodology and findings can be accessed here.

BLOG SERIES BASED ON A CROSS COUNTRY STUDY ACROSS INDIA, INDONESIA AND MYANMAR
LAND ACQUISITION SOUTH ASIA

As persons affected with land use change grapple with displacement, loss of livelihood and environmental degradation, it becomes clear that they are rendered extremely vulnerable. In their fight for rights, as they employ multiple strategies to make their voices heard and influence decisions of those with power, it becomes important to understand their struggle that displays critical thinking, collective agency and pragmatism.

This blog discusses various stories of such struggles from India, Indonesia and Myanmar. These stories present a granular account of how land use change decisions result in varied set of impacts experienced for years, how these experiences turn into long standing land conflicts, the efforts made by affected communities to seek remedies and the counter efforts they face as governments and projects protect their investments and try to retain control over the narrative of growth and development.

India

Shree Maheshwar Hydro Power Dam, Madhya Pradesh

Maheshwar dam project has seen several investors pulling out of it.

The Maheshwar dam is built in Nimad, the South western region of the state of Madhya Pradesh, 2 km upstream from the town of Mandleshwar. The project is part of the Narmada Valley Development Plan under which 30 large and 135 medium-sized dams have been planned in the Narmada valley. With a generation capacity of 400 Megawatts, the dam put nearly 60,000 acres of extremely fertile agricultural land and over 20 villages under full or partial submergence. A large mass movement, comprising the local communities, farmers and environmental and human rights activists, has been protesting against the project as well as against the NVDP (Narmada Valley Development Plan) in general. The struggle in Maheshwar has been going on for more than 20 years.

Gevra Mines, Chhattisgarh

After March 2019, EAC will evaluate the pollution control measures of Gevra mines and based on it, will decide if the project should continue.

With over 10,000 million tonnes of deposits, the Gevra coal mine is the single largest source of power grade coal in India. The mine has been in operation since 1981, and land acquisition for the project dates back to 1979 with subsequent acquisitions in 2001 and 2009. There have been grievances that the acquisition has led to forced relocation, loss of livelihoods and insufficient compensation. People who were displaced have been resettled to colonies set up very close to the mine, and they complain of water contamination and pollution. In 2012, when it spread over an area of 4942 acres, it was the largest open cast mine in India. Still continuing to be the largest mine, today it has double the land area and spans across 9884 acres (4000 hectares) of land in Korba district of Chhattisgarh. Following an expansion of its production capacity, efforts to acquire more land began in 2014. On May 2, 2016, Korba witnessed a massive protest by SECL (South Eastern Coalfields Limited) against land acquisition for mining. Around 679 people from 41 villages protested at the site of the Gevra Mines. These villagers were all farmers who demanded jobs, rehabilitation and compensation as per the amended Land Acquisition Act. There is a proposal to further increase the capacity of Gevra Mines up to 70 MTPA (Million Tonnes Per Annum) in the near future amidst all the existing unaddressed grievances.

Myanmar

Myaung Pyo resists water woes

Original location of Myaung Pyo village has been razed to extract tin.

Heinda Tin mine in Tanintharyi Region of Myanmar has been in operation since the British Times. After the take-over of the mine by the Thai Company Myanmar Pongpipat and Mining Enterprise, a state-owned company, in 1999, the villagers of Myaung Pyo filed complaints of its ill effects. In 2012, the village was flooded due to the breakage in the mine’s tailing ponds and streaming of sediments from the mine into the local creek. The villagers filed a lawsuit against the mine and demanded compensation for the damages to their property. Alongside, the villagers have been engaging the regional level government to ensure that the mine complies with environmental safeguards. Approaching the company, administrative complaints, lawsuits and international redress—the villagers are reaching out to all possible avenues where mitigation of ill impacts and compensation for past damages is possible.

Thilawa residents brace for upcoming land transformation

Farmers, who would lose land in the second phase of development of the SEZ, hope to be compensated fairly for their losses.

The Thilawa SEZ (Special Economic Zone), located approximately 25 kilometers south of Yangon between Thanlyin and Kyauktan townships, is spread over an area of 2,400 hectares. First phase of the project (spread over 400 hectares) has led to forced displacement of 68 families. The compensation given to them was inadequate and the relocation site lacks basic amenities. The farmers, united as Thilawa Social Development Group (TSDG) reached out to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the project financer, seeking improvements in the relocation site. While the impacts of the first phase are yet to be addressed, second phase of the project has begun. Alongside, individual factories are coming up on the land acquired for the project in the first phase. The land users and SEZ authorities are negotiating compensation for land acquisition in the second phase. In June 2017, 39 families were trapped because the Thilawa town officials had erected a wall around their homes claiming that the land belonged to the government.

Indonesia

Illegal Oil Palm Plantation of Rejeki Alam Semesta Raya in Kapuas

PT RASR has turned the land that was used by community members for planting rubber into an oil palm plantation.

PT RASR initiated oil palm plantation on 7000 ha of community land in Kapuas district of Central Kalimantan. The land was in use by the locals for cultivation of rubber and fishing. This led to an income loss for them. Farmers organised themselves in a group of affected farmers, demonstrated outside the company office and different government offices, registered formal complaints with the Regent and parliament of the district. In violation of the forestry law, the company also took over land in protected forest. This and people’s complaints led to cancellation of company’s permission to use the land. Despite all this, the company continued to work people’s land and forestland in question. After a series of failed mediations, some of the aggrieved farmers decided to reclaim their lands. Since 2016, the farmers have been harvesting oil palm on their lands on and generating income from the activity. However, they still seek a formal recognition from the government of their right over their land.

Community response to Arjuna Utama Sawit’s oil palm operations in Katingan district

Danau Bulat lake is silting up due to drainage canals built by PT AUS

In 2008, PT Arjuna Utama Sawit (AUS) took over land belonging to inhabitants of eight villages of the Katingan district in Central Kalimantan. The local community was using this land for horticulture plantations. PT AUS not only violated the moratorium on use of peatlands, it also dug canals and planted oil palm in peatland forest area as well. It dumped the waste from its oil palm factory into a nearby lake and the Katingan river. The company, although promised plasma agreements to the community, has yet to deliver on the same. Initially, the community did not protest the land grabs aggressively, but later on tried to reach out to the company and bring government’s attention to illegalities committed by the company. However, the company continued its operation ignoring communities’ complaints and efforts. In October 2017, the community members from one of the villages blocked work in PT AUS’s plantation area. They demanded execution of the promised plasma agreements and full details of the plasma scheme provided by the company.

PT AKT: The Biggest mining company of Borneo

PT AKT and PT Marunda Graha use Barito river for transport of coal extracted from over 40,000 hectares of land in Murung Raya

PT Asmin Koalindo Tuhup (AKT), the largest coalmine of Borneo took 2000 hectares of land from six villages of the Murung Raya regency of Central Kalimantan. The villagers, under pressure from the company, agreed to relinquish their agricultural lands at a price much lower than the market rate. Mining activities have led to contamination of the local water sources, the Hingan and Kohung rivers. Villagers have raised their concerns with the company and with local government departments. On losing their land-based livelihoods, the villagers had hoped that the mine would give them employment. In absence of state-sponsored basic infrastructure, they also expected facilities such as clean water, better healthcare arrangements and education from AKT. However, their hopes and expectations have only been met with empty promises. As of January 2018, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia had cancelled its agreement with AKT. In such a scenario, it is unclear who will take responsibility of remedying environmental destruction, offsetting loss of livelihoods and ensuring reclamation of land from which the coal has been mined out.

This is the fifth blog based on the study carried out by the CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program, and supported by a grant from IDRC, Canada.

The other pieces in the series can be accessed below:

Understanding the Impacts of Land Use Change
Understanding the Strategies used to address the impacts of Land Use Change
Understanding the Outcomes and Remedies sought for impacts of Land Use Change
Detailed Studies of cases of Land Use Change Conflicts: Part I
The study reports on India, Indonesia and Myanmar including the above-mentioned case studies in full and an overview of the study’s methodology and findings can be accessed here.

A BOOK BY AGNES DEBOULET, VÉRONIQUE DUPONT AND SOLOMON BENJAMIN
URBAN SERVICES URBAN GOVERNANCE PODCAST

Agnes Deboulet, a Sociology professor at Université Paris-VIII Vincennes Saint-Denis co-authored a book titled ‘Rethinking Precarious Neighbourhoods’ along with Véronique Dupont, a Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR, and Solomon Benjamin, Associate Professor at IIT, Madras.

The Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and CPR hosted a discussion on the book in April this year featuring panellists from government and academia.

Watch the full video of the discussion (above) on how precarious neighbourhoods can be approached within the broader urban context. Especially, since precariousness has increasingly become a typical characteristic of urban spaces, where social and economic transformations lead to rises in material and environmental insecurity. A dedicated event page with the details of the book discussion can be accessed here.

Deboulet also recorded the 17th episode of CPR’s podcast ThoughtSpace on the book, in which she unpacked the concept of precarious neighbuorhoods and discussed its various dimensions. The podcast can be accessed here.

FULL VIDEO OF THE DIALOGUE
SANITATION

Watch the full video (above) of the session on ‘Emerging formal Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Faecal Sludge Management (FSM)’ featuring Dinesh Mehta, Y Malini Reddy, Suresh Kumar Rohilla, Rahul Mankotia and Kartikeya Gajjala.

The seminar had two thematic sessions. The first session ‘Emerging formal PPPs in FSM’ discussed insights from the field to build an understanding of the market potential and risk-sharing strategies developed amongst communities, private entrepreneurs and governments and further deliberated on the ground challenges of bringing and assembling viable private sector participation for a safe and sustainable urban sanitation future.

Speakers for the session:

Dinesh Mehta, CEPT University

Y Malini Reddy, Administrative Staff College of India

Suresh Kumar Rohilla, Centre for Science and Environment

Rahul Mankotia, Centre for Science and Environment

Kartikeya Gajjala, J Sagar Associates

The session was moderated by Anindita Mukherjee, Centre for Policy Research.

This was followed by a session ‘Stakeholder Dialogue on FSM Transition in Indian Cities’ that explored possible solutions to understand the emerging interfaces between markets and regulatory frameworks. The objective of the Dialogue was to attempt to connect the dots between various practitioners and experts in the field, to learn from their experience in states and their experience in implementing and initiating a broader discussion on the potential for an alternative private sector participation in the sanitation value chain.

Speakers for the session:

Anindita Mukherjee, Centre for Policy Research

Prashant Arya, Centre for Policy Research

Sanjay Singh, Population Services International

Amresh Sinha, Blue Water Company

S Ramanujam, Centre for Policy Research

Yogesh Upadhyay, Centre for Policy Research

The session was moderated by Shubhagato Dasgupta, Centre for Policy Research. The second session that followed can be accessed here.

Dialogues on Sanitation Series

This is the 2nd dialogue in a series planned by the Scaling City Institution for India: Sanitation (SCI-FI) initiative with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). This dialogue series builds on the CORP lecture series and seeks to provide a platform for discussing the experiences of the researchers and practitioners on urban sanitation across various thematic areas.

Access the other Dialogue on Sanitation session below:

1st Dialogue on Sanitation session

 

A STUDY
COASTAL GOVERNANCE

The Centre for Policy Research – Namati Environmental Justice Program has recently completed a three-year-long study, the first of its kind, titled CZMAs and Coastal Environments: Two Decades of Regulating Land Use Change on India’s Coastline, analysing the functioning of Coastal Zone Management Authorities (CZMA).

Coastal Zone Management Authorities (CZMAs) were first constituted to regulate coastal land use and environments following an order of the Supreme Court (WP 664/1993) to implement the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification. While the CRZ Notification has gone through detailed reviews by eight committees and over 25 amendments, there has been no comprehensive review of the functioning of the CZMAs.

This study addresses a critical gap. Read the full report, the executive summary, and the CRZ report cards here.

PART 10 OF A SERIES ON ‘COASTAL REGULATION’ BY DR CHITRA VENKATARAMANI FOR THE CPR-NAMATI ENVIRONMENT JUSTICE PROGRAM
COASTAL GOVERNANCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RIGHTS

Asymmetric rights to the coast fosters identity politics and housing insecurity.

One of the central tensions in the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) Notification as it plays out in relation to the complex land politics of Mumbai, is the question of development in fishing villages and slums. This essay highlights the new tensions and boundaries created between urban communities by the notification as it confers different rights to slum dwellers and fishers.

At the heart of the problem, is not only the government’s inability to embrace complexity in its mapping and planning process for the coast, but also its avoidance of an important problem Mumbai faces – that of well-designed, sustainable, and accessible low-income housing.

Untenable categories

The 2011 CRZ categorises ‘Koliwadas’ (fishing villages) as CRZ III where as ‘slums’ are categorized under CRZ II – each category leads to different developmental potentials. Under the differing guidelines for these categories, those recognised as slum-dwellers have access to housing under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). However, those who claim their residential areas as ‘Koliwadas’ have the opportunity, albeit vaguely worded, to self-develop: to improve the conditions of their residential areas in line with the city’s development regulations. While on paper, such a plan might seem workable, it is hard to draw boundaries and clearly define areas as Koliwadas or slums on ground.

Fishing communities in Mumbai are often located within larger, hybrid, informal settlements, making it hard – if not impossible – to draw such strict boundaries around them based on identity. Since the CRZ places the burden of proof on the fishing communities and because of a lack of documents and surveys that clearly identify the location and extent of the Koliwadas in the city, the city’s fishers face the very concrete threat of displacement into SRA schemes. That is, unless they are clearly able to claim the identity of “traditional fishers,” they stand to not just lose the opportunity to develop their residential areas, but could also end up getting displaced as a result of a combination of factors that include developmental pressure, lack of infrastructure, and the unsustainability of fishing as a livelihood in the city.

At the heart of the problem is the form and process of the SRA, which has been severely criticised by many urban planners and advocates. For example, Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove write that not only does the SRA offer poor living conditions, it also cuts off avenues for informal economies to thrive and destroys complex living-working spatial relationships.

Creating tensions

In evoking the SRA as a solution for housing in urban coastal areas, the CRZ opened the doors for identity politics and this created new tensions between communities living side-by-side. While this pushes us to ask broader questions regarding the lack of low-income housing in the city, better policies and provisions for those who live in informal settlements (their identities and community affiliations notwithstanding), it is also important to trace how this different distribution of rights came to be, and what CRZ surveys and plans have to do with it.

In December 2004, when the Swaminathan Committee was still in the process of reviewing the 1991 CRZ, the Indian Ocean tsunami struck, leaving a trail of devastation along the country’s coast. This event had a significant impact on the committee and this is evident in the opening paragraphs of the report it eventually released a month after the tsunami. Indeed, the committee writes of the catastrophe caused by this event as one of the foundational reasons for having a robust policy that would safeguard the coast, its ecology, and coastal residents. Cognizant of the deep impact of natural disasters on low-income coastal communities, the CRZ was to provide the means for better housing and livelihood for this vulnerable population, while safeguarding the coast against exploitation through sustainable development.

The committee recommended that the previous restriction on constructing SRA schemes on coastal land be lifted for two main reasons: firstly, to provide some measure of protection for slum residents given their precarious living conditions, and secondly, because it identified slums as harmful and polluting to coastal and urban environments. It is important to note that the idea of the slum as ‘polluting’ is deeply problematic especially since a large part of Mumbai’s waste is released untreated into coastal waters. By contrast, the fisher communities were to be given land rights and housing provisions as a result of their dependency on the coast. Thus, the notion of vulnerability resulted in two radically different solutions in the CRZ notification, the SRA for slum dwellers and coastal land-rights for fishers. These steps obscured the interconnections between these communities and also shaped the subsequent political rhetoric of rights claiming after the 2011 notification was released.

Threat to Mumbai’s Koliwadas

The 2014 Shailesh Nayak committee solidifies the threat of displacement of fisher communities as it proposes to categorise all of the city’s Koliwadas under category II, opening up these areas for redevelopment under the SRA. It also reinforces and deepens the boundaries between those who live in the different informal settlements along the coast. The committee circumvents a central question: can we think of equitable, sustainable, pro-poor, pro-fisher housing and development models?

In order to answer this question, the CRZ Notification – particularly its maps and plans, which determine how the law will unfold across the urban terrain and in people’s lives – has to engage with the complex conditions and relations on the ground. Instead of shying away from complexity, the CRZ plans have to acknowledge and work with the interconnectedness of communities and the intricate relations between people, landscapes and the environment.

Chitra Venkatramani is an anthropologist at the National University of Singapore and is currently working on a book on cartography and the politics of the CRZ in Mumbai.

The previous pieces in this series can be accessed below:

Coastal commons for private tourism and entertainment?
Is it the end of participatory coastal planning?
States ask Review Committee to loosen up the Coastal Regulation
Crucial aspects of proposed Marine Coastal Regulatory Zone Notification revealed
In conversation with Dr Shailesh Nayak – the man who led the review of coastal regulation
The proposed Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification
A tale of two reviews: How two governments amended a coastal land use law
The Supreme Court’s guiding principles for coastal regulation
Coastal Regulation Zone Disputes before the National Green Tribunal