Contesting Sustainability in the Peri-urban Interface: The Case of Water in Ghaziabad

STEPS, Sarai and JNU

Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex23 & 24 September 2010

Sustainability and the Peri-urban?

Highly contested zone. Complementarities leading to opportunities but also exclusions.

Increasing environmental degradation and increasing marginalisation. Lack of services, lack of regulation, access deficit, Ambiguity, informality, illegality; organised irresponsibility.

Increasing recognition of conflicts. Lack of approaches to realise rural-urban synergies and address poverty reduction and environment degradation, bringing together social, technological and environmental.

• Water as entry point (with land, agriculture and health).

• Identify actors and their positionality in relation to peri-urban water management.

• Consultations of framings, narratives aspirations.• Mobilisation of the poor for rights and services.• Examination of how sustainability/non-sustainability

has been institutionalized in Delhi? • How to open up socially-just processes of decision-

making?

Research Focus

Ghaziabad – A peri-urban interface at the eastern border of Delhi.

River Hindon which flows through Ghaziabad divides it into Trans-Hindon (west) and cis-Hindon (east) regions.

A study was done in the Trans-Hindon region close to Delhi Border. There has been major transformations in this region in the last 10 years – conversion of agriculture into built up area, polluting factories relocated from Delhi, construction of high rise residential and commercial complexes, migration of work force , growth of informal localities etc.

Case Study Area

Case Study Area

Map of India

GhaziabadDelhi

Dominant Narratives and Pathways

• Universal ‘safe’ access via piped water supply and long distant transfer of water.

• Cost recovery and commodification.

• ‘Making Water Safe’ (technology and quality) water filter industry, bottled water, S&T, Diverse notions/standards of pollution, risk, wastewater treatment, sewerage.

• Beautification and purification.

• Constituted of plethora of government agencies at different scales within and beyond water sector –either minimal or negligible interaction between them.

• Guided by policies drafted in accordance to the politics of ruling party in the centre and the state - Translation of policies into action plan is a top-down process

• Implementation of the action plan is done by team of engineers - modus operandi is based on calculations and projections. They overlook the interface of technical solutions with conflicts and contradictions at the ground.

Official System and Actors

• National Water Policy 2002 – “Adequate safe drinking water facilities should be provided to the entire population both in urban and in rural areas”.•There is no link between water supply and waste water. Both are treated separately.• At national scale nothing on domestic waste water. To deal with industrial waste water – national level agency (CPCB). • Silence on water quality at all the levels.• At the level of implementation - logic of demand and supply (assessment of present availability and consumption, and projection of future needs).• Conflict within the action plan and officials in relation to informal settlements (IS) – plan states regularisation of IS, the officials opines it is not their responsibility.

Official Framings

Field Insights-Coping Strategies

• Multiple modes of supply and access (formal and informal; legal and illegal)

• Separation between access and quality

• Relationship between memory, community and use

• By choice: Opting out (purchase/power/patronage/mobilisation)

• Water safety and self reliance • Diverse notions and systems of waste and contamination

• Nexus between the low rank official staff (maintenance staff) and the people of informal colonies.

• Role of elected representative as a negotiator of informal practices with the formal system.

• The silence of the formal system on informal practices

Link between Formal System and Informal Practices

• Incomplete knowledge and unrecognised cross-sectoral linkages (water-health-agriculture)

• People presented with new risks

• Certain risks highlighted over others

• Whose responsibility to control risk?

• Technologies presented as reducing risk

• Various tactics to sell technologies

• Language of science and guarantee of safety

Notions of Risk, and Technological Choices available to the Poor

• Meetings with senior officials – Peri-urban poor have tried very hard to put forth their demand of formal water supply in the offices of several senior officials but nothing happened.

• Official forums of participation – People are unaware of forums such as friends of industries or friends of irrigation etc. as mentioned by officials.

• Elected representative in the ULB – this is the only thing that seems to work but not in a way as it is expected to work. The municipal councilor play the role of negotiator between the formal system and informal practices.

Mobilisation of Poor

Peri-urban Sustainability

Recognise conflicts between… • Universal standards and local experiences

• Linking access and quality

• Access and sustainability

• Justice and illegality

• Good governance and social justice

     

Way Forward

• Where does the peri urban fit into urban planning ? • How can the geographical and social distribution of

water be made more equitable?• What is the true cost of water and who is paying for

what? • Is sectoral, administrative and jurisdictional integration

possible? • Can we bring together equity and ecological integrity?• How can the debate of peri-urban futures be opened

up and democratised?

SocialTechnological andEnvironmentalPathways toSustainability

Thank You!

AlankarBhagwatiAmitabh KunduHayley MacgregorFiona MarshallLyla MehtaPritpal RandhawaDipu SharanLinda Waldman