Small towns Big mess
For a long time since Independence, Indians almost forgot that thousands of small towns lie outside the metropolitan veil. Such towns it seemed were destined to remain in the shadows of mammoth cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad or Bangalore. National discourse rarely veered round to minor towns and how to plan for them. The intelligentsia generally tend to think about an India that exists either in the metropolitan cities or the other end of the spectrum, the villages.
This lack of care has slowly become a major problem. In the last two decades, the towns began to grow out of the shadows of the metros. Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, Ludhiana in Punjab or Jetpur in Gujarat, industries sprouted and exports grew. As their products started making an impact in the market, the small towns woke up to their own potential. They found a place on the industrial map.
In order to find out what is the state of the environment and human life in these small towns, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) studied the state of four industrial towns - Ludhiana, Jetpur, Tirupur and Rourkela, three relatively non-industrial towns - Aligarh, Bhagalpur and Kottayam; and Jaisalmer, a tourist town. The finding was shocking: India is facing a total and absolute collapse of its urban environment.
Every non-metro that CSE studied revealed already appalling and worsening conditions. There was no organised civic effort to change anything. Almost as if India's emerging elite in these towns has reconciled itself to the filth in the same towns where their magnificent mansions had come up. The civic authorities seemed mesmerised by the process of change and were dwarfed by its scale.
There is no dearth of irony in the way these towns are managed. For example, Bhagalpur has no sewage and, not surprisingly, it is drowning in filth, mostly domestic waste. But Aligarh has a sewage system. It should have been a clean city. But Aligarh too is drowning in filth from overflowing sewers. Wbere we don't have sewage systems, we point to that as the cause of dirt and filth. Where we have sewage systems, we don't know how to keep it functioning.
Towns like Aligarh and Bhagalpur are poor towns. They have not benefited from industrial investment but they are cracking under the pressure of a growing population. These towns have no waste disposal systems, and have subsequently been drowned in filth. But towns like Ludhiana, Jetpur, Tirupur and Rourkela are industrial boom towns with lots of money. Ludhiana's municipality, for instance, has a budget of Rs 100 crore. But the result is the same: mounting wastes, crippling traffic and unchecked industrial pollution. The ultimate irony is that progress has only meant one more step towards catastrophe.
Due to lack of good drinking water, people are forced to use groundwater which results in a reduction of the ground-water table. Toxic wastes are known to be polluting the aquifers in these towns. In Ludhiana and Tirupur, there are reports of rogue industrialists even pumping their toxic waste water into groundwater aquifers to escape detection by pollution control inspectors.
As water has the unique ability to collect all the dirt and the filth generated by society, an excellent indicator of urban decline is the state of all the rivers and streams that pass through the minor towns that we studied. No town that CSE studied passed the test. The Buddah nullah (canal) which passes through Ludhiana and feeds the Sutlej, the Bhadar which passes through Jetpur, the Noyyal which bisects Tirupur and the Brahmani which meanders past Rourkela have all been laid waste by chemical and microbiological dirt produced so abundantly in these places.
The people of Dhoraji living downstream of the river Bhadar in Jetpur and farmers living near Tirupur have filed cases against the polluters upstream. Though the judges have threatened closure of the polluting enterprises upstream, precious little has changed. This is the only sign of organised protest that CSE noticed. But there were no protest within the polluting towns themselves. Voluntary organisations pushing for change were non -existent in this landscape.
This crisis of urbanisation cannot be met by just building a drainage system for every growing town. The larger questions of resource crunch, infrastructure and migrating populations have yet to be addressed in a focussed manner. Then, of course, there is the problem of bureaucracy which does a lot of planning (master planswhich serve no purpose but look good on paper) and does not implement anything. And then there are no ideally managed towns which can spread their good tidings through ripple effect or from where other town planners can learn a few lessons.
At the heart of it aft is a cultural crisis. In all these towns selfishness has reached a peak. Indians are happy to keep their houses clean. But they are equally happy to live with filth around them.
Money or no money, plan or no plan, these towns seem destined to wallow in filth.
THE INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
LUDHIANA
Ludhiana's problem is that of plenty. This industrial town has a per capita income of Rs 30,000, almost 30 times more the per
capita income of the state of Bihar which is only Rs 1,067. Woollen hosiery is Ludhiana's pride and its icon and it also dominates the machine tools industry. To top its industrial might, Ludhiana has fertile terrain and is one of the most fertile regions of the world with an
average yield of 4,192 kg of wheat and 3,231 kg of rice per hectares (ha).
Yet, the city is going to the dogs due to uncontrolled industrial pollution. The civic authorities sitting on a huge budget are too overwhelmed by the growth of the town to attempt anything drastic. There is a visible apathy towards these problems as the town drifts towards being an environmental nightmare. Mayor Sat Prakash Chowdhury recalls a time when the city was dotted with gardens like Raja Ram Bagh. In the congested old part of the town, the Deresi Ground is the only open space with an area of around
two-and-a-half ha.
Officially the population is placed at a moderate 1.6 million but in real terms it could be in the region of two million or more considering that there is a floating population dose to a million. These are mostly migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who gets jobs as agricultural workers during the harvesting seasons. "The municipal corporation is supposed to provide civic facilities like water, electricity, housing and public conveniences for the floating population. But these people also exist and use up the resources of the city," says district collector Arun Goel.
Any boom in industry is also followed by a boom in real estate and that is what is happening in Ludhiana. Though prices now are not at the highest considering the recession in the economy, land still sells at a phenomenal rate of around Rs one crore per ha. Consequently, the construction industry is doing quite well.
Staple food like wheat, rice and maize are grown in the district like in any other place in Punjab which produces surplus food. More than 50 per cent of the vegetable requirement of the place is met by produce from the district itself.
With the city expanding to accommodate the ever increasing population, large tracts of highly productive agricultural land have been swallowed by the ever-growing city. "Due to unplanned expansion, the city looks like a huge slum," says S S Sahani, retired professor of the Punjab Agricultural University. The limits of the city has been extended five times since 1951 and is still growing.
Ludhiana is a boom town. But with it has come the eating up of natural resources and the erosion of the environment. To
face the mounting criticism of state apathy towards this problem, a plethora of government agencies have been set up to plan out measures to make life a bit more easier and the city a lot more cleaner. Apart from the municipal corporation, the Improvement Trust and the Punjab Urban Development Authority there is the town and country planning department, district industrial centre and the Punjab Pollution Control Board. But none of these agencies have been able to even make their presence felt. Environmental problems facing Ludhiana are not limited to air pollution and overflowing drains. The city faces a shortage of drinking water and industrial pollution apart from agriculture related pollution caused by pesticides.
It has been estimated that nearly 40 per cent of the population in the city have to do without proper drinking water. The city does not possess a garbage disposal plant and all the water, including that generated by the industries, are emptied mostly into the Buddah nullah. "What is sorely required is a master plan which is environmentally sound and ecologically considerate," says Avtar Singh, chairperson, Small-scale Industries Association. Actually two master plans have been created for the city but those remain only on paper.
A few major industrial units like Hero Cycles, A-von, Vardhman, Oswal, Thapar and Casablanca have pollution control equipment installed in their factories. "Although the big industrial units have treatment plants, the pollution board has not been able to have any treatment process approved and patented so far. The industrialists have to approach a few firms for technical know-how," complains Mahin Gupta, who owns a dyeing unit in the city. He wants a regulatory agency to become a consultancy firm for erring companies.
The result is that the citizens and labourers who work in these factories suffer. "Labourers work in very hazardous conditions and almost 80 per cent suffer from lung diseases," says Jasbir Dhanoa of the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana, who studied the health of factory workers. Industrial effluents have also poisoned the groundwater. Ludhiana has 180 tubewells at a depth of around 90 metres which are normally safe. But the huge number of handpumps, at a depth of just 20-30 metres is where the danger lies. In
handpumps installed at a depth of 6-15 metres, the concentration of chromium (0.25 milligrams/litre; permissible limit: 0.05 mg/1)/zinc (0.25 mg1l; permissibre limit: 5 mg/I and cyanide (0.5 mg/l; permissible limit: 0.05 mEvl)/re quite high. The soil in and around the Buddah nullah has also been found to be contaminated with nickel, chromium, lead, arsenic, zinc and copper. High levels of iron and manganese are also present in food crops (see table: Poisoned crop).
The symbol of Ludhiana's ecological deterioration is the Buddah nullah. Not a single fish can be found in this tributary of the Sutlej river where there once used to be 56 species. "The Buddah nullah is a perennial freshwater tributary. The various elements and compounds present in it are as per any natural system. Once it enters the city and passes through the town's industrial areas it becomes a cocktail of chemicals," says B D Kansal of Punjab Agricultural University. Kansal's research showed that the concentration of nickel increased from 0.04 nanograms (one-billionth of a gram) at the starting point of the drain to 0.84 ng in the Jamalpur industrial area, despite the fact that during this stretch the nullah is diluted by the sewage water from the city. The Buddah nullah carries the sewage dumped into it in Ludhiana for 10 km and finally empties it into the Sutlej.
If the state of the rivulet running through the town is so pathetic, air pollution in the boom town is downright dangerous. In Ludhiana, which has the highest density of vehicles in India after Calcutta, there are about five lakh registered vehicles in the town apart from the nearly 5,000 heavy vehicles and about 20,000 autorickshaws that pass through the city every day spewing pollutants into the air.
There is a sense of helplessness all around. Until that is replaced by a sense of bravado within the municipal corporation, Ludhiana will continue its ride towards catastrophe.
TIRUPUR
Tirupur looks quite an ordinary Indian town and on the face of it is quite an unlikely contender to be a place which monopolises
cotton knitwear exports. Nestled in the shadows of the Western Ghats and situated on the banks of the Noyyal river, Tirupur in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu has in the last decade grown as an industrial hamlet. It is now almost a symbol of quality cotton wear be it T-shirts, shirts or under garments. Rather ironically, the modern bustling Tirupur is the creation of the World War 11.
Though the first hosiery unit was set up in this town in 1925, it was the war which created a sudden demand for cheap cotton
wear which Ludhiana alone could not meet. Labour unrest in other areas where cotton industry existed, like Calcutta and Kannur in Kerala, resulted in units being shifted to Tirupur. Today, the town is the undisputed leader in cotton products accounting for more than 90 per cent of India's knitted exports and over one-fifth of India's garment exports. This is an incredible achievement.
The cotton industry is estimated to be employing over 200,000 workers. According to J Jeyarajan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), Tirupur, is a unique instance where modernisation of technology has not affected labour for the simple reason that old machinery put up for disposal is immediately bought by a small producer who takes along the labourers who were working on it.
The Noyyal river, dark and depleted, is the flip side of the industrial boom. Like in other industrial towns, many units
conveniently empty the effluents into the river or into agricultural fields. The 44 million litres (mld) per day of water that is required by the hosiery industry, mainly for dyeing, finds its way back into the river, rich in toxic materials. The groundwater quality has also deteriorated considerably. Some of the dyes are known to be carcinogenic. Research by the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University found the ground-water in the area to be highly saline with heavy metal concentration - 1.30-1.53 parts per million (ppm) apart from alkaline pH value (unit for measuring acids and alkaline content) and heavy chlorides (see table: Tirupur toxins).
There are also incidents of effluents being pumped into dry bore wells. "Anything is possible in Tirupur. They are all driven by a profit motive," says Paul Appaswamy, director of the MIDS. While profit motive is the basis of all industrial enterprise, spoiling the environment need not necessarily be. But that is exactly what happens. Noyyal river is the primary victim of industrial pollution. Ultimately the river contaminated by pollutants and domestic sewage from Coimbatore reaches the Cauvery river which is crucial to this water-scarce region. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, however, rejects this thesis saying that the Noyyal being a small river
hardly increases the water toxicity of the Cauvery since the dilution level is to the tune of 1: 10,000. The board had recommended that many units should join up and finance common effluent units. Over 460 units in Tirupur and 165 units in Karur were closed down by the Supreme Court orders in May 1998 after they failed to instal effluent plants (see special report: A tale of two rivers, pg 26). The court
decision followed a lengthy legal battle on a petition filed by farmers collectively which argued that the polluted water was harming argricultural produce as well.
JETPUR
Jetpur lies in the heart of Saurashtra, the western Kathiawar peninsula which juts into the Arabian Sea between the Gulf of Kutch to
the north and the Gulf of Khambaat to the southeast. In 1997, the population of Jetpur was 1,25,600, up from 30,000 shown in the 1991 figures. This rise in population itself points to the rapid industrialisation that this town in Rajkot district is undergoing. The industrialisation is due to one major industry - textiles. There are around 1,200 dyeing and printing units in the town having an
average annual turnover of more than Rs 150 crore. Apart from this, there are around 500 ancillary units all of which combine to produce, on an average, two million metres of printed cloth per day which is enough to make 40,000 cotton saris.
Water pollution is the major ecological threat that Jetpur faces. The river Bhadar which turned seasonal with the construction of a dam upstream has now turned red due to the untreated effluents from dyeing units which are emptied into the river. "Just two decades ago the Bhadar gave clean water. But the dyeing industry polluted it totally. The chemicals used for printing saris have sunk deep into the soil and has even killed the grass," says Shyamjibhai Antala of Dhoraji town, downstream of Jetpur, who has been leading an agitation for clean water. Water in Jetpur and nearby towns are highly contaminated. The composition of suspended solids was found to be as high as 500 mg/l.
Dhoraji has been waging a two-decade battle against contamination of their river water. In 1984, 10 years after the public outcry began, the government finally woke up to the public demand and decided to construct a 16-km pipeline to supply potable water to Dhoraji. After various court cases and agitations, the high court ordered closure of certain units that were polluting the water and the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) ordered construction of a common effluent treatment plant. The plant, however, had only a limited capacity of 9 lakh litres against a daily discharge of 7 million litres. Public interest litigations, contempt cases and memoranda have had only partial effects, since few units are willing to spend on effluent treatment processes and state bodies are reluctant to
order units to shut down fearing large-scale unemployment. Says Antala: "Neither the mass agitation earlier nor the legal battle so far have made the printing units mend their ways. The state government and its agencies remain mute spectators to the blatant violation of their own directives year after year."
Poisoned crop
Concentration of elements in various plants in Ludhiana
(in micrograms per gram)
|
CROP |
SOURCE
OF IRRIGATION |
ZINC |
IRON |
COPPER |
MANGANESE |
CADMIUM |
Berseem |
Tubewell sewage |
18.0
49.0 |
34.4
46.3 |
14.7
16.8 |
29.2
48.8 |
0.85
1.15 |
Spinach |
Tubewell sewage |
38.0
77.0 |
38.3
58.9 |
18.1
20.2 |
52.7
71.0 |
0.84
1.44 |
Fenugreek |
Tubewell sewage |
39.5
47.9 |
29.3
70.9 |
11.5
17.2 |
25.0
35.0 |
0.64
1.25 |
Coriander |
Tubewell sewage |
37.0
62.2 |
47.1
63.6 |
8.0
14.0 |
27.0
28.5 |
0.85
1.64 |
Wheat |
Tubewell sewage |
34.1
42.8 |
9.5
46.0 |
8.4
10.3 |
14.5
24.0 |
0.45
0.82 |
Before the Environment Protection Act was passed in 1986, the dyed and printed saris were washed in the Bhadar letting all the dyes and chemicals into the river. Due to public pressure, GPCB ordered relocation and these units moved into agricultural land within 40 kilometres from Jetpur. But the problem persists since the dyes from the washing tanks eventually end up in the river or contaminate groundwater. Normally two tanks are used for dyeing and fixing. The first tank in which the saris are washed absorbs almost 75 per cent of the colour and the second tank about 15 per cent. The water from the first tank is emptied on to the ground while
water from the second tanks is used for irrigation. Though industrialists insist that the water is not harmful, a study by a Dutch team recently showed that sodium content in the water is very high. This reduces soil permeability, damages crops and contaminates groundwater.
An elaborate plan to detoxify the water and prevent the dyeing units from releasing chemical-ridden water into the river has to be chalked out. But all that is easier said than done. Jetpur's waters might be getting increasingly colourful doses of toxic dyes but the future of the town looks far from bright.
ROURKELA
Rourkela is a mine of wealth, its soil mingled with rare minerals and metals. It falls smack in the middJe of the mineral-rich north-western Orissa. Ever since the 1870s, when large deposits of limestone and dolomite were discovered, Rourkela was targeted for commercial exploitation but it took a long time - till 1937 - before a comprehensive survey of the region was undertaken.
Unlike other industrial towns, Rourkela was a planned town. The first phase of residential townships in about 40 ha of
land was finished in 1982. The second phase which began in the late 1980s is still underway. The normal everyday problems that plague other boom towns cannot be seen in Rourkela for even the dumpyards for domestic waste are identified and the town is divided into zones for the collection of garbage. The steel township has its own sewage network and a treatment plant. Toxic wastewater from the steel plant is collected in a lagoon of nearly one sq km where particles are allowed to settle down and then the water reaches the perennial Brahmani river through the Guradih nullah.
By the normal standards of environmental protection in India, these are admirable measures. But steel and cement
being the major industries the level of air pollution is quite high. Workers in the fertiliser and cement factories constantly come in touch with toxic gases, fames and hot acids. The integrated steel plant and the fertiliser plant generate pollutants which make their way to Guradih nullah. The annual average of suspended solids in the nullah shows a sharp increase in toxic discharge. The retention of effluents in the lagoon, however, has a positive fall-out with the concentration decreasing after water passes through the lagoon.
Though the steel plant has effluent treatment plants, units like the coke oven plant, hot rolling mills and cold rolling mills, continue to emit large quantities of pollutants. A study by the Orissa Pollution Control Board points out that groundwater quality varies widely with acidic pH and high biological oxygen demand (BOD). From the environmental point of view, the positive point is that Rourkela is passing through a post-boom low. There have been few new industries in the 1990s and, as a consequence, there is not much pressure on the infrastructure of the city and even on agricultural land.
Tirupur toxins
Analysis of effluent water
|
NATURE
OF SAMPLE |
PH |
SS |
TDS |
BOD |
COD |
Hand bleach |
7.3 |
268 |
9,085 |
20 |
278 |
Peroxide bleach |
7.7 |
25 |
6,060 |
240 |
526 |
Dyeing |
9.5 |
40 |
10,930 |
110 |
436 |
Peroxide bleaching and dyeing |
9.2 |
30 |
7,150 |
170 |
450 |
Note:
PH: a unit used measurements of acidity or alkalinity SS: suspended solids
COD: chemical oxgen demand
BOD:
biological oxygen demand |
NON-INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
ALIGARH
Aligarh was among the six districts chosen for the Green Revolution along with Ludhiana in the 1980s. The Green Revolution happened and Aligarh, like many other towns, went on to bigger things like rapid and unplanned industrialisation. In the process, the
town underwent a drastic change due to incessant pollution. Today, it is a town of dirty river and nauseating nullahs, clogged streets, overflowing drains and is constantly shrouded with a haze of polluted air.
Aligarh is the most important centre for locksmithyy and monopolises the industry. There are around 1,500 registered
industrial units employing around 7,000 people and 6,000 units in the unregistered sector employ about 70,000 people. A single lock-making factory produces around 300 locks a day. The metal grinding and polishing in lock-related industries puts out huge amounts of hazardous particles in the air. The fumes from acid used in the lock industry is another pollutant and could be the cause of severe respiratory problems.
The work of polishing the metal pieces is one of the dangerous jobs that form part of the lock industry. Rusted pieces of metal are polished on buffing machines, the bobs of which are covered with emery powder. The piece is held by hand against the bob and the rusted portion is polished off. The worker's face is within 25 centimetres of the rotating machines. The workers have little choice but to inhale the emery powder and metal dust. In spray painting units, substantial quantities of toxic gases from zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, iron oxide and cadmium compounds in paints and paint thinners are inhaled by workers.
Highly acidic water from the polishing and electroplating industries, have ruined the freshwater ponds of Aligarh. Heavy
construction activity has also ensured the shrinking of the ponds every year thus increasing the acid concentration. The historic Achal talab (pond) dries up every summer.
A trip through the innards of the city gives one the impression that the town is one huge garbage dump. A World Bank-aided project for garbage clearance is not being managed efficiently in yet another case of money for civic amenities being misused. Highways that lead to and from the town, areas near the railway station and even the so-called plush localities like the Civil Lines are littered with garbage. The municipality employs 1,000 people for garbage collection but, according to a municipal corporation official, they need at least three times the number of people to handle the deluge of garbage.
The town of Aligarh extends three to five km beyond the periphery. The expansion has been at the cost of agricultural
land. Colonies located in these areas are not provided with any infrastructure as municipalities do not regulate them (see table: Land transfer).
There are no signs yet of any concerted effort being put together to stem Aligarh's decline into absolute filth. In the
near future visitors might comment that Aligarh has gone down the drain - lock, stock and barrel.
Land
transfer
Land withdrawn from agriculture in villages surrounding Aligarh during
1985-95
|
Use for which
withdrawn |
Area in
hectares(ha) |
Number
of villages affected |
Industry |
274 |
8 |
Kept vacant |
107 |
10 |
Borrow pits |
86 |
29 |
Brick kilns |
63 |
16 |
BHAGALPUR
"I don't remember when this garbage pile was removed last," says Amit Maitra, who stays near the busy Moshak Chowk in Bihar's Bhagalpur town. The problem with Bhagalpur is that many people there do not remember when anything was done in this town. For instance, an underground sewage system constructed in 1994 is still waiting to be commissioned. Few government officials
from the lowly clerk to the mighty district collector seem to have any clue as to what is happening in the town. "Even if you find the file it is no use. The population statistics are bogus, calculated without a field survey," remarked a cynical clerk in the corporation office when a CSE correspondent requested for data on the city's population. "In the last 12 years, I don't think I have even visited a construction site," said a site supervisor in the Bhagalpur Regional Development Authority.
This general sense of gloom and apathy pervades the government offices and is symptomatic of how the town with a population of over 253,000 is run . Bhagalpur and its surroundings have rich groundwater resources. The average annual rainfall in the region varies between 1,250 mm to 1,350 mm. Most of the time there is power in the town for only half-a-day which hampers the growth of industries. Though Bhagalpur does not demand large-scale expansion since its population growth is not phenomenal, there is a marginal growth in construction activity in the nearby areas. Cropped lands in the nearby villages are frequently being converted into vegetable and dairy farms to cater to the needs of the town.
Traffic snarl-ups are the rule rather than the exception in this south Bihar town and hence air pollution is high. Badly maintained and overloaded autorickshaws contribute a lot to the congestion of the roads. Most of these rickshaws designed to carry three passengers carry five or six people.
Among the towns surveyed, Bhagalpur can be said to have the most primitive civic facilities with nearly 40 per cent of
dwellings continuing the practice of nigbt-soil disposal using human scavengers. Under the Ganga Action Plan, a sum of Rs 1.80 crore was spent on a treatment plant and underground pipes were laid to lead drain water to the plant. But the plant has never been functional and drainage water still flows to low-lying areas of the town. Even solid wastes are not collected or disposed efficiently. It is no wonder then that groundwater shows high level of contamination. For a town swathed in such unsolvable civic problems, lack of good drinking water and congested roads is just a minor glitch.
TOURIST TOWN
JAISALMER
Jaisalmer is one of the world's prettiest 4 desert forts. And it is one of the few in which people still live. But modern Jaisalmer is also
bursting at the seams and using water in a way that may destroy the very Jaisalmer tourists throng to see.
Unlike other towns in this study, Jaisalmer, named after Rao Jaisal who built the huge fort in 1156, has no surfeit of
industries clogging the town and its rivers. The town thrives on tourism drawing more than two lakh tourists ever year, to see the forts and to ride on camels across sandy dunes that stretch across the horizon. Most of the industries in the town revolve around the famous yellowstone and marble and the units house stone crushers, carvers and the like. Jaisalmer is also the distribution centre for local millets and pulses.
Like other desert towns in Rajasthan, Jaisalmer has a string of tanks and lakes which have been its source of water for
generations. The 600-year-old Gadisar was the biggest natural water reservoir with a vast catchment area of about 2,000 ha and a perennial water supply. These lakes and tanks also kept the groundwater levels high. But now, most of these tanks are dry or have very little water. Gadisar is used for bathing and cattle also find the tank a cool place for beating the heat. The drainage in the catchment area has also been destroyed and, as a result, the water level in the tank has gone down considerably. Jaisalmer now depends mainly on the mining of the limited groundwater reserves around the fort.
The immediate and major problem that Jaisalmer faces is that of drainage water. Wastewater has seeped so excessively into the earth that the entire peripheral wall of the fort remains constantly damp. In many places, the ramparts of the fort are beginning to crack. The problem is basically that of plenty. Clean piped water is available in plenty but there is no drainage system. The drain water of the fort is brought down to four points along the slope of the fort from where it spills over to the outer limits and joins the main lines of the drainage. The drainage water is finally opened out near the railway station where it spreads forming a cesspool of filth.
Jaisalmer has expanded five times since the municipality was set up in 1965. A master plan was drafted in 1982 but
the plan, as in the case of other cities, is observed mostly in the breach. The classic skyline of Jaisalmer with forts and buildings with latticed balconies is fast disappearing due to the mushrooming of hotels and other buildings catering to the tourism industry. Every third house in the town, even the old buildings with latticed balconies or jharokas with out any idea of the damage being done to the old structures, is being converted it into a hotel or a tourism office. "There is a need to establish a 100-metre-wide zone where buildings are prohibited. Jaisalmer is a living town and not a dead monument. The real challenge is in conserving it without evicting the people," says Amita Baig, director, Jaisalmer Conservation Initiative, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
On the edge
Not many people in these towns swamped by industrial, agricultural and domestic waste are aware that they are poised on the edge of a precipice. The crisis of urbanisation is for real and a governmental initiative at the macro-level is called for to stem the rot. The lack of care and the absence of local level popular movements against pollution is also worrying. This CSE study is once again a reminder that some of these towns could indeed slip beyond the edge.
With inputs from Vineet Katariya in Ludhiana, Jetpur and Jaisalmer; George K Varghese in Bhaga1pur, Aligarh and Rourkela; and P R J Pradeep in Tirupur and Koaayam
Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.