Unique Adaptations of Technology and Practices 45 Problems or Opportunities Towards a better quality of urban life Housing for All In 1997, the Government of India, through a National Agenda, declared ‘Housing for All’ as a priority area, and set a target of construction of 2 million houses every year with emphasis on houses for the poor and deprived.   With this background, the New National Housing and Habitat Policy (NHHP) was formulated in 1998. The main objectives of the Housing Policy are: !  Creation of surpluses in housing stock, either on rental or ownership basis. !  Providing quality and cost-effective shelter options, especially to the vulnerable groups and the poor.            !  Ensuring that housing, along with the supporting services, is treated as a priority and at par with the infrastructure sector. !  Removing legal, financial and administrative barriers for facilitating access to land, finance and technology. !  Forging strong partnerships between private, public and cooperative sectors to enhance the capacity of the construction industry to participate in every sphere of housing and habitat. !  Using technology for modernising the housing sector to increase productivity, energy efficiency and quality. !  Empowering the Panchayati Raj institutions and village cooperatives to mobilise credit for adding to the housing stock. Indore is one of the largest cities in Madhya Pradesh state, central India. With a growing population, close to touching one million, the city’s slums were proliferating and the urban poor living in these faced the consequences of poor living conditions. It was in this scenario that the Indore Habitat Project was taken up in 1990, with the objective of reducing the serious deficit in urban shelter and services in Indore. The eight year project which was implemented in 183 slums demonstrated the potential of improvement of slums, rather than their clearance. The Department for International Development (DFID) provided significant support for the project which was implemented by the Indore Development Authority. The major components of the project were physical infrastructure improvement, health care, and community development. The physical component consisted of providing individual or community water supply, individual or community toilets, and paving of streets, and some street lighting and solid waste management. The focus of the health component was on preventive health care, environmental health awareness and primary health services. Creation of neighbourhood groups, vocational training for women, adult literacy, pre- school and non-formal education, and development of commmunity savings mechanisms formed an integral part of the community development component. The unique feature of the Indore project was the concept of Slum Networking as the approach to infrastructure provision. Slum Networking provides a framework for an integrated upgrading of the entire city within which the slum areas are viewed not as individual settlements but as an urban network. The basis for the network are the city’s waterways—it is along these that the majority of slums are located. The waterways also offer Initiating Change Slum Networking 13

Towards Sustainability: Stories from India 46 potential for the installation of services, and environmental and aesthetic improvement. The Slum Networking approach also provided for the development of additional infrastructure in the transition zones around slums, as well as for a main sewer and a treatment plant for the city. Earlier,  housing colonies and slums were discharging their untreated sewage directly into the city’s water courses and the river Khan, which flows through the middle of the city. The underground sewer lines now intercept the sewage along the affected banks and carry it to the treatment plant. A basic framework was thus provided for the transition of the whole city from open gutters to an underground sewage system. Slum Networking helped considerably in making this happen because it utilized topographic advantages for routing the drainage courses, and by providing effective linkages from in-between the slums, avoiding expensive and time-consuming processes of land acquistions and demolitions. Thus, apart from benefitting 4,50,000 slum dwellers, the Slum Networking approach benefitted the entire city. The stretches of rivers which passed through the city centre were cleaned of sewage. The banks were beautifully landscaped. On the banks, pedestrian paths and gardens were laid, thus adding to the aesthetics of the city. According to the project plan, individual toilets were to be connected to the underground sewage system and individual water supply connected to a piped network. Individual toilets, constructed for about 80,000 families, took into consideration the fact that these provided greater dignity in use, and responsibility in maintenance, than community toilets. Cost-effective mechanisms were used for construction. To keep costs low while providing individual water connections, first a network of water mains was laid, and then the existing sources integrated with it. To facilitate drainage, contrary to common engineering practices, the roads  were placed in a slight excavation with positive downward slopes from high points to the drainage courses. These roads functioned to carry away most of the  storm water, thus attenuating the rain peak. Storm drains were also built, but they were cheaper to construct than normal as their length and depth were reduced because their function was partly taken over by the roads. The soil made available from the excavation was used to fill up low-lying areas and channelize the slope to drain the water towards the roads and storm systems. This helped in prevention of water accumulation in low lying areas. The project also envisaged a substantial amount of soft landscaping. This meant that only part of the overall ground within the slum was paved and the rest left for landscaping at Implementation A Unique Technology for Sanitation Common sanitation technologies and sewarage are often found too expensive and water-intensive to become widely prevalent. Sulabh Sauchalaya, an NGO, introduced innovative sanitation technologies which have facilitated widespread access to sanitation. Local authorities, NGOs and the community have come together to make this programme a success. This partnership has resulted in the construction of over 700,000 individual Sulabh Shauchalayas in houses and 3000 public toilets, providing sanitary facilities to about 10 million people in nearly 1200 cities and towns spread over the country. The organization has set up community toilets called Sulabh Shauchalaya complexes for households, pavement dwellers, commuters and other floating populations. The complexes maintain round-the-clock cleanliness and also have facilities for bathing and washing clothes. A nominal amount is charged from the users. Children and disabled persons are allowed to use the facilities free of cost. The ‘pour flush water seal toilet’ is environment- friendly and requires only 1.5 to 2 litres of water for flushing. Due to its water seal property, it does not emit a foul smell. This technology is sustainable, replicable and cost effective. The human waste discharged from the complexes has been put to use as an alternate source of energy and manure, by replacing the usual septic tank with a scientifically designed night soil digester. Biogas generating plants linked with community toilets have been set up at most of the complexes.

Unique Adaptations of Technology and Practices 47 the initiative of the community. Many of these areas were planted with grass, giving  clean and firm surfaces at a fractional cost of hard paving. Grasses also absorb more water, thus reducing peak flows in the storm systems. The slum networking project has been implemented through a synergistic partnership between the State Legislative Assembly, community members, and private stakeholders. The direct beneficiaries have contributed considerably to the programme. All families contribute a proportion of the sewarage costs by paying for the house connections from the main line. The earthworks and landscaping are directly executed by the beneficiaries through self- help groups and largely at their own expense. The health, educational and social components are run at the grassroot level by community volunteers. Cooperative groups of community members operate revolving fund schemes. Linkages have been formed between individual families and societies, with established financial institutions e.g. Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) among others, while the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) financed housing provision and improvement in the area.   Slum Networking has been replicated in Vadodara and Ahmedabad with similar success. In Vadodara, the slum dwellers played an active role in the development of the project and in its execution and subsequent maintenance. External funding agencies like UNICEF, the Municipal Corporation and local industry were catalysts in the project. The Slum Networking Project demonstrates the effectivity of slum upgradation and is in consonance with the Draft National Slum Policy  which states that ‘Slums are an integral part of urban areas and contribute significantly to their economy both through their labour market contributions and informal production activities. This Policy, therefore, endorses an upgrading and improvement approach in all slums. It does not advocate the concept of slum clearance except under strict guidelines’. An Initiative Replicated Offering Alternatives Various NGOs and organizations across the country are working on models of alternative shelters, and promotion of eco-friendly technologies. TARA (Technology for Action for Rural Development) the technology promotion wing of Development Alternatives, an NGO, has been developing and disseminating alternative building material products and technologies. These include: TARA Tile Maker: In building a house, the cost of roofing is a major component. An option for an affordable and durable roof has been offered through Micro-Concrete Roofing (MCR) tiles developed by TARA. Made of cement and sandstone, these TARAcrete roofing tiles are affordable, light, leak-proof and long-lasting. These are manufactured using the TARA Tile Maker machine and TARA provides training to small, local entrepreneurs in this MCR tile-making technology so that they can earn up to Rs.10,000 ( US$ 200) a month. TARA Balram Mud Block Press: To cater to the requirement of bricks that do not involve energy- intensive and polluting manufacturing processes like the burnt bricks used today, TARA has been promoting technologies like Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) and Vertical Shaft Brick Kilns (VSBK). The CEBs are manufactured by a simple, hardy machine known as TARA Balram that compresses ordinary soil into dense masonry units which are durable and water-resistant. The VSBK technology, originally developed in China, provides an efficient design for conventional brick kilns, which also saves energy and is less polluting. The overall approach in these technologies is that they are small-scale, decentralized and people and eco- friendly in nature. These technologies also create employment for local communities and thus help in creating sustainable livelihoods, especially for the marginalized and rural poor.