IE : Flyovers won’t decongest city : Sept 25, 2007
proposes Rs 200 cr to build toilets
KAVITHA IYER
SEPTEMBER 24
WITH 40 per cent of the population of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region-Navi Mumbai, Vasai, Virar, Ulhasnagar, Kalyan Dombivli, etcliving in slums, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is proposing a first-ever attempt to centrally plan and administer a sanitation programme for this vast outback area that’s regarded as the only hope for decongesting the financial capital.
As a first step of the ‘Nirmal MMR’ programme, the MMRDA has appointed NGO SPARC (Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres) to assess the requirement. Within a month, SPARC will submit estimates on how many toilet blocks are needed in Mumbai’s slums, followed by another report a few months later. Around 80,000 toilet seats will be required, initial estimates suggest.
“For the smaller urban local bodies in the region who bare all in a precarious financial position, we are proposing to give grants for construction of toilet blocks,” said Metropolitan Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad. When the governing authority of the MMRDA-its highest policy-making bodymeets later this week, they will consider his proposal to offer Rs 200 crore in grants for construction of toilet blocks. Hoping to replicate the tremendously successful sanitation model executed in Pune when he was municipal commissioner, Gaikwad’s plan is to provide capital for construction and then rope in community organisations to enforce proper maintenance.
For the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the MMRDA is seeking a hike in budget allocation for slum sanitation. While Mumbai’s deficit of 35,000 toilet seats would cost about Rs 300 crore to construct, the MMRDA has instead offered free rehabilitation tenements for slumdwellers displaced by the new toilet blocks.
Gaikwad says three models will be considered-permanent blocks that can be constructed in four to six months, quasi-permanent structures that can be built in 15-30 days and mobile toilets that can be attached to sludge-trucks. “We are suggesting a large number of mobile toilets for the MMR and for areas where slum redevelopment schemes are possible or likely,” he said.
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