Challenges of Urban Sanitation

Dr. Akepati S. Reddy

Thapar Research Laboratories
Thapar University
Patiala (PUNJAB) – 147 004

Introduction
Years 2005 to 2015 is the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’. To
halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation is one of the
three primary goals of this decade of water for life. Halving, by 2015, the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation is one of the targets set towards achieving the UN
millennium development goals (MDG). At the UN Millennium Summit (Sept.
2000), over 190 world countries have agreed on 8 millennium development
goals and 18 targets. Providing access to basic sanitation is included in the
10th target under the 7th MDG ‘Ensure Environmental Sustainability’.

Year of reference for this basic sanitation goal is 1990. For meeting the
sanitation target everyday upto 2015, 370 thousand additional people should
gain access to improved sanitation. Our challenges of the water for life
decade on the sanitation front in meeting the MDG target are 1) pushing
ahead and taking care of the huge backlog of rural people unserved, and 2)
accelerating our efforts in urban areas to keep pace the rising urban
population.

In 2004, only 39% of the world’s rural population was having access to
improved sanitation. In 1990 it was 26%, and if the current trend continues it
may raise to 49% by 2015. For South-Asian countries these figures are 8 and
27 for 1990 and 2004 respectively. For India the situation is still grim. In 1990
only 3% were served and by 2004 it raised to 22%.

In 1990, 79% of the world’s urban population had access to improved

sanitation. By 2004, access for improved sanitation has risen to 80% and, if
the current trends continue, it may raise to 82%. For South-Asian countries,
these figures are 54 and 63 for 1990 and 2004 respectively. In India, urban
population having access to improved sanitation was 45% in 1990 and has
risen to 59% by 2004.

Despite growing percentage of people gaining access to improved sanitation,

unserved urban population is increasing due to rapid urbanization. Globally,
in 1990, there were 475 million unserved people. In 2004 this number has
raised to 611 million, and it may raise to 692 million by 2015. In India also,
the unserved urban population is increasing. It was 121 million in 1990 and
this number rised to 125 million by 2004.
Beyond 2007 more than 50% of the world population will be urban. Most of
the urban population growth will be occurring in developing countries that too
in the unplanned and underserved slums. Sanitation coverage of urban slums
is much below the average of the urban areas. High population density, poor
urban infrastructure, lack of space, lack of secure tenure and sustained
poverty make sanitation in slums very critical. This is making urban
sanitation, specially, in urban slums all the more important.

More than 25% of the urbanites of developing countries will remain unserved.
Even those urbanites, who are covered are facing a different set of
challenges. The sanitation infrastructure is falling into despair as a result of
inadequate institutional support, insufficient cost recovery, poor operation
and maintenance and from lack of sound management practices.

Current trends indicate that we may fail to meet the urban sanitation
challenge. Satisfying the sanitation needs of urban poor and the urban slums
will continue to prevail as one of the greatest humanitarian challenges. In this
talk I will try to analyse the challenges faced by urban sanitation and discuss
the strategies that can be followed for meeting the challenges and achieving
the millennium development goal and basic sanitation target by 2015.

Sanitation
Sanitation is defined by world health organization as the means of collection
and disposal excreta and community liquid waste in a hygienic way so as not
to endanger the health of individuals or the community as whole. Sanitation
in its narrow sense can be considered to include safe disposal of human and
animal excreta, wastewater and solid waste and drainage. Convenient toilets
and sewerage systems are central to urban sanitation.

Basic sanitation is defined as the lowest cost option for securing sustainable
access to safe, hygienic and convenient facilities and services for excreta and
sullage disposal that provides privacy and dignity while ensuring a clean and
healthful living environment both at home and in the neighborhood of users.

Sanitation together with safe drinking water and good hygiene practices is a
key defense against disease. Inadequate sanitation results in sickness and
death, higher health costs, lower worker productivity and denial of the right
of people to live in dignity. Hundreds of millions of people are debilitated by
illness, pain and discomfort and around 1.6 million people die annually from
lack of safe drinking water and sanitation. This number is 8 times to the
number of deaths from the Asian Tsunami, 2004. Of the people about one
million are infants and children of less than 5 years age.

Challenges of urban sanitation

Today urban sanitation is caught in the debate between the following schools
of thought: a) people have right to a clean and safe environment and
government must provide sanitation for free; and 2) sanitation serves both
social and economical good (health related expenses are reduced and keep
people fit to be productive and earn money), and hence people should pay
for the sanitation service.

Our urban environment is rapidly changing but the technologies and

approaches used for sanitation are not changing. We are still depending on
years old engineering and infrastructure solutions. Further, we are
excessively depending on the practices and standards of the developed
world. Use of technologies that consume large amounts of water and
generate large amounts wastewater and waste management through
storage, flushing and disposal has been the approach followed in our cities.

Urban sanitation is characterized by infrastructure including vast number of

toilets, sewerage systems, functional sewage treatment plants and treated
effluent disposal facilities. Investment required for creating this infrastructure
is very high (reported as 5 times to that needed for providing safe water
supply service). Further, these infrastructure projects have longer project
cycles (policy making, mobilization of resources, planning and design,
construction, and operation and maintenance of sanitation system). In
essence, expansion and sustainability of sanitation is costlier.

Issue of old, fragmented and deteriorated sewerage and drainage system is

another challenge mostly originated from the speedy urbanization. Shortage
of funding and technological resources, week institutional arrangements and
management capacity and lack of public awareness are mostly responsible
for this challenge.

Not having a good sanitation policy, and when present, not strictly
implementing the policy have been serious problems. Almost non-existing
legal and institutional framework, and utilities not being sufficiently
autonomous and accountable have been the other important problems
suffered by the urban sanitation sector. Mostly publicly (local government)
run utilities (which are normally monopolies) provide sanitation services.
These utilities mostly disregard the regulations even if they are in place.

Strategies and solutions

Looking for alternatives to the costly major infrastructure:
Alternatives are available at all stages of sanitation (toilets, excreta or sullage
collection, treatment and disposal). 3R strategy (reduce – reduce volume and
improve quality, reuse and recycle) that gained endorsement at the G8
summit of 2004 can guide our choice of alternatives. Alternatives can be
different for households, for shared facilities, for communal facilities and for
central systems of collection, treatment and disposal. Segregation and safe
reuse of grey water at the household level (hydroponics and kitchen
gardening), minimizing water use in toilets, etc., can prove very effective.
Toilets consume about 30% and even more of the water supplied to a
household, and use of low flow toilets or the concept of dry sanitation (dry
toilets) can dramatically reduce silage generation. Treated municipal
wastewater can be recycled and reused in agricultural and industrial systems.

Adapting Ecosan (ecological sanitation): Ecosan is based on the

systematic reuse and recycling of nutrients, organics and water as a
hygienically safe, closed loop and holistic alternative to conventional
sanitation. Key features of ecosan are 1) prevention of pollution and disease
caused by excreta, 2) managing excreta as a resource, and 3) recovery and
recycling of nutrients. Innovative toilet designs are used here for collecting
the excreta separately for processing to reduce volume, weight and
pathogens and composting.

Greater emphasis on soft approaches: There are two approaches for

solving problems: hard approach and soft approach. Engineers tend to solve
sanitation problems by hard approach through building infrastructure
capacity. Social scientists think about solving the problem by soft approach
through building human capacity. Soft approach, involving awareness and
capacity building, can make sanitation services cheaper and the sanitation
infrastructure effective and sustainable. Soft approach should become
integral part of the sanitation infrastructure project and play complementary
role.

People paying for the sanitation service: If people have right for
sanitation then sanitation should be provided fee of cost. Even if sanitation is
considered as a social and economic good, majority of urban population,
specially, the urban poor and the slum dwellers, may neither have ability to
pay nor can they afford to pay for the sanitation services. But social
marketing of sanitation can make people willing to pay for the sanitation
services. Increasing community language and understanding of sanitation
and its linkages to health can stimulate demand for sanitation and make
people willing to pay.

Formulation of good sanitation policy: central and/or state government

should formulate sanitation policy and guidelines. All the people and
agencies, who play critical role in the policy implementation should be
involved in the policy formulation. While framing the policy due consideration
should be given to the resources required for its implementation and to the
capacities of the policy implementing agencies. The formulated policy should
provide base for the creation of legal and institutional framework. It should
indicate the roles and responsibilities of different players involved in
providing the sanitation service. Further, the policy should indicate its
financial implications to all the stakeholders (central and state governments,
local governments, utilities and people). Implementation of the policy and
monitoring of compliance with it can be the local government’s responsibility.

Legal framework: legislation and regulations should provide for the

monitoring of compliance with the sanitation policy and adequacy and
appropriateness of the service, and should adequately establish the roles and
responsibilities of utilities. Regulations should control the utilities (which are
normally monopolies) and the quality and standard of service provided by
them. Through approving tariff levels regulations should ensure that the
utilities have the resources for sustainability while taking affordability of
users of service into consideration. Regulations should be applicable equally
well to both private sector utilities and publicly run utilities by local
governments.

Institutional framework and capacity development: Institutional

framework should provide for awareness and capacity development. It should
provide for the setting, implementing and monitoring of regulations and
standards. It should also provide for the social marketing of sanitation
services. Capacity building or development should work in the direction of
taking maximum advantage of the soft approaches for expansion and
sustaining of urban sanitation. Institutional frame work and capacity
development should encourage community approach for sanitation and
involve all stakeholders in providing cost-effective sanitation service.

Utilities should be autonomous and accountable service providers:

For sustainability utilities should have freedom to set tariffs, to hire and fire
and compensate their staff and to purchase needed equipment and materials
needed in the providing of sanitation service. Further, the utilities should be
run along commercial principles (maximize efficiencies and tariff collection).
Government’s and political interference into the autonomy of the utilities
should be minimized or altogether avoided.

Use of technology that is easy for the communities to use, maintain and
repair.

Concluding remarks
Preferring clean, healthy and productive environment is a basic human
nature. People want that they are involved in the decisions that affect them.
community mobilization, equipping people with necessary information and
involvement of people in decision making can lay a strong foundation for
sustainable sanitation.

Sanitation should not be seen in isolation. Integration of sanitation, hygiene

and safe drinking water is needed. Community should be made aware of the
strong linkage among personal hygiene, safe water supply, sanitation,
drainage and municipal solid waste management desired outcome.