Saturday, November 11, 2006
One toilet for 1440 people
That is in Dharavi, a Mumbai suburb between Mahim and Sion. It is said that Dharvari is the essence of India. There is such a lot going on. Such a lot of drive, industry, vibrancy, enterprise. So much spirit. All that cannot but lift you. This corner of India produces everything from garments to tallow to watch-strap buckles to lip-smacking savouries like chikki, much of it for export.
Dharavi encapsulates much of what is wrong in India today. Open drains, piles of uncleared garbage, filth and pitiful shacks are everywhere. Why do so many people have to live like this? That's partly answered by the housing crisis India's cities are buckling under. Foolish laws, misguided policies and venal leaders combine to produce an artificial, but severe, scarcity of land for affordable housing, forcing middle- and lower-class Indians into tiny tenements in impossibly crowded slums like Dharavi. If that's not hard enough, their lack of tenure over the land they live on keeps their lives in a sort of permanent insecurity.
Last Friday the existing pay-and-use toilets were found not to be not maintained at all. This, clubbed with improper drainage facilities, is an open invitation to water-borne diseases. The free public toilet remains closed most of the time since the contractor charges people for it on a monthly basis. But now that it’s defunct, people are still using it.
At Sion Hospital, 10,000 patients are admitted every year for diarrhoea and 30,000 more take treatment in the Outdoor Patient Department. Most of these patients hail from the Dharavi area.
Dharavi encapsulates much of what is wrong in India today. Open drains, piles of uncleared garbage, filth and pitiful shacks are everywhere. Why do so many people have to live like this? That's partly answered by the housing crisis India's cities are buckling under. Foolish laws, misguided policies and venal leaders combine to produce an artificial, but severe, scarcity of land for affordable housing, forcing middle- and lower-class Indians into tiny tenements in impossibly crowded slums like Dharavi. If that's not hard enough, their lack of tenure over the land they live on keeps their lives in a sort of permanent insecurity.
Last Friday the existing pay-and-use toilets were found not to be not maintained at all. This, clubbed with improper drainage facilities, is an open invitation to water-borne diseases. The free public toilet remains closed most of the time since the contractor charges people for it on a monthly basis. But now that it’s defunct, people are still using it.
At Sion Hospital, 10,000 patients are admitted every year for diarrhoea and 30,000 more take treatment in the Outdoor Patient Department. Most of these patients hail from the Dharavi area.
# posted by uv : 6:59 AM
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