In Infra Vaani, noted urban infra expert Akhileshwar Sahay dissects infrastructural challenges of Indian cities and offers solutions. In a three-part series this week, he looks at India@75. Part 1 looks at population, economy, slums, homeless, water supply and sewage.
AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT
A week ago, on August 15, the day India celebrated 75 years of independence with ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, I woke up to pen down the short history of India’s infrastructure”.
Little did I realize then that the task would be more arduous than squaring the circle that too with a foggy mind recovering from the recent onslaught of Covid-19.
But here it is. Sector by sector, it analyses the infrastructure India inherited in 1947, what we added in 75 years, the current deficit, and the trajectory, infrastructure growth India must see in Amrit Kaal to be future-ready for India@100.
I begin with the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, when Tiranga was first unfurled at the Lal Quila. Announcing the birth of the new nation, Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister, spoke rightly as part of his famous ‘tryst with the destiny’ speech:
“The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.”
Seventy-five years have passed.
In the interim, India has made impressive all-round progress and has created unique place for it in the galaxy of nations.
We have lot to be proud of. It is celebration time of achievements of India@75. But it is also a time to introspect and ponder over areas where our achievements have fallen short of aspirations.
It is in this context that the latest ‘Panch Pran’ from the ramparts of Red Fort by Prime Minster Narendra Modi and his talk to step forward on a new path, with a new resolution and a new strength assumes significance
Why investment in infrastructure matters? The short answer is — it is both growth enabler and growth propellant. There are huge spin-off benefits of investment in infrastructure to GDP growth and poverty alleviation.
Fast infra building is also critical to India becoming $5-trillion GDP economy by 2025. To make it happen, the country needs $1.4-trillion investment in infra sector by 2024-25 in order to achieve a gross domestic product (GDP) of $5 trillion by 2024-25, as per Economic Survey 2022.
While this is difficult to achieve but not impossible, considering that during FY 2008-17, the country did invest $1.1 trillion in infrastructure, I step back to 1947 when new India was born, amid massacre of lakhs and largest ever two-way migration of refugees in the history. The circumstances of Independence amid bloodbath of Partition could have broken the backbone of nation, instead, the country matured into a vibrant democracy, with a constitution that worked and the statutes, rules, regulations, and institutions that have stood test of time.
340 MN VERSUS 1.412 BN
At the time of Independence, India’s population was 340 million (minus what went to Pakistan and now Bangladesh) up from of 251 million in 1921, 252 million in 2011 and 238 million in 1901.
Growing fast post-independence, the population doubled between 1947 (340 million) and 1981 (683 million), crossed 1 billion in 2001 and touched 1.21 billion in 2011. As per 2022 edition of United Nations, World Population Prospects (WPP), India’s 2022 population (1.412 billion) is fractionally behind China (1.426 billion) and in 2023, will take over China.
The report also projects that in 2050, India’s population will be 1.66 billion against China’s 1.317 billion.
In 1947, India inherited primarily subsistence level agrarian economy with 83% Indians living in seven lakh-plus villages. The dominant governance paradigm till the first decade of the 21st century was: ‘India lives in its villages.’
It led to conscious policy of containment of cities and towns with resultant gross deficit in every sector of urban infrastructure.
In parallel, the county’s urban population between 1951 and 2011, grew six-fold from 62.41 million (i.e., 17.3% of the total in 2,843 towns) to 377.10 million (31.2% of the total in 7,915 towns). And as per the government dataset, in 2021, the urban population crossed 437 million, i.e., 36% of the total and is projected to grow to 553 million in 2026.
And by 2047 i.e., India@100, the urban population is likely to cross 50% the total population.
The most populous country globally with the world’s biggest urban population is the canvas on which we have to juxtapose the current status of infrastructure and required future trajectory of the same. In parallel, we have to create rural infrastructure at par with that of urban India.
THE DIVIDEND
The country entered the demographic dividend window in 2005-06 and will be there for five decades. During this period, the demographic dividend window, the working age ratio equal to or more than 150% and the dependency ratio equal to or lower than 66.7%, will be within the cut-off point of demographic window.
Such a five-decade-long demographic dividend, from 2005 to 2055, is longer than any other country in the world has seen.
We need to look at demographic dividend as mammoth ‘Available Human Infrastructure’ to catapult the country into developed nation by India@100.
And to make it happen, the country will need fast-paced physical and social infrastructure development and commensurate employment generation in tandem with banishing the curse of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, poor health conditions and education deficit.
THEN AND NOW
According to British economic historian Angus Maddison, India’s GDP in 1700, around the end of the Mughal Empire was 24.4% of the world economy, greater than China and more than combined Europe.
Then came the British extortionist colonial rule which decimated the Indian economy and when the British left, India’s GDP had dwindled to 3-4% of the global GDP.
Unsurprisingly then, in 1947, the economy was in tatters and poverty loomed with a low Rs 265 per-capita income and GDP below Rs 2.7 lakh crore, central government annual revenue receipt of Rs 171 crore, forex reserve at a paltry Rs 911crore, foreign trade at a poor Rs 1,214crore and food grain production insufficient at 50.8 million tonnes.
Worse were the social parameters — life expectancy at 32 years, infant mortality rate at 145.6/1000 live births and maternal mortality ratio at 2000/100,000 live births. As per the 1951 Census, only 18.33% Indians were literate, of which female literacy was 8.86%.
Circa 2022.
As per World Bank, India is nowthe world’s sixth largest economy with $3.1 trillion GDP and per capita income is up 500 times from Rs 265 of 1951 to Rs 1,28,829 in 2020-21. India’s foreign reserve from $1.82 billion has grown to $578 billion and provide strength to the economy from external shocks.
COMPOSITION OF ECONOMY
The share of agriculture from 55% of GDP in 1947 is down to 14% in 2022. Contrarily services share from nowhere in 1947 has grown to 54%. The manufacturing at 15% of GDP although has substantially diversified today, it has lagged behind and the government’s near-term target is to increase manufacturing share to 25%.
India has the audacious target to catapult to $5-trillion economy by 2025 and to make it happen, it has to fast track infrastructure development.
India@75 presents itself as a mixed bag — the big leap in development coexisting with missed opportunities.
While the country has resolutely shed the ‘third world country’ tag, a lot more is needed to reach the ‘developed country position’. Across parameters of physical infrastructure, the country has taken giant strides, but much is left desired in basic human parameters.
Before taking stock of the infrastructure development between 1947 and 2022, I begin with what the British bequeathed in 1947.
At Independence, there were two types of infrastructure — the ones which British needed to meet their trade needs and to govern the country, i.e., Railways, Telegraphy, and Ports were better developed. But the development of other sectors was in nascent stage
The road-length was 0.4 million km, electricity generation capacity was at 1362 MW with per capita consumption at a low of 16.3 kWh. The country had only 80,000 telephone connections. Merchandise export stagnated at US dollar 0.1 billion and the number of vehicle registrations was 300,000 in 1951. It zoomed to a record 3.8 million in 2021.
It is time to now dissect the infrastructure growth sector by sector in 75 years.
GHETTOISATON – DISRUPTED HABITAT
Mushrooming growth of slums is a direct result of unplanned urbanisation. According to the United Nations World Cities Report 2016, the number of slum dwellers in developing countries increased from 689 million in 1990 to 880 million in 2014 and was growing fast. Unsurprisingly then, 25% global urban population lives in slums.
What is India’s situation?
As per India census 2011, the number of households was 246.69 million — rural households 167.83 million (68%) and urban households 78.86 million (32%).
But there is one type of household that does not get properly counted — slums.
What is a slum?
The UN Habitat defines slum as one which is “characterised by lack of durable housing, insufficient living area, lack of access to clean water, inadequate sanitation, and insecure tenure”.
Within the country, Section-3 of the ‘Slum Area Improvement and Clearance Act, 1956’ defines slum as residential areas where dwellings are unfit for human habitation by reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangements and designs of such buildings, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light, sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors which are detrimental to safety, health, and morals.
Also, there are two categories of slums- ‘notified and non-notified’. The ones notified by respective municipalities, corporations, local bodies, or development authorities are notified slums. A slum is considered as a non-notified slum if at least 20 households lived in that area.
Living conditions in non-notified slums are far worse than those in the notified slums.
Strictly as per definition, a large number of habitats in both rural and urban, fell in the category of slums even at Independence and their number has fast grown thereafter.
Slum-households face dire existential conditions. They are overcrowded, dilapidated, with poor ventilation, lack of safe potable water, absence of sewage, no solid waste facilities, unhygienic conditions, waterlogging during rains, absence of toilet facilities, lack of electricity, surfaced roads and footpaths.
Life in slums is mired in in destitution, extreme poverty, malnutrition, diseases and lower than normative mortality rate.
How many Indians live in unliveable slums?
Slums have grown rapidly since Independence, the reasons being impact of Partition, flight to cities for better livelihood, the gap between the growing demand for affordable urban housing and insufficient supply and lastly due to major natural disaster led migration of disaster-affected families.
As per the 2011 census, slum population was up to 65.49 million from 52.37 million in 2001. This is underestimation, as per a recent World Bank report, the slum population in India in 2018 was as high as 35.2%.
It is difficult to correctly estimate the number of slum dwellers because increasingly large number of them live in informal non-notified dingy settlements along nallahs, drains, railway lies, riverbeds, parks, and other open spaces.
What have the governments done so far?
Since 1956, the governments initially focussed on ‘slum clearances’ for beautification of cities. The approach failed miserably.
Ever since varied schemes have been tried – combination of demolition and upgradation, in-situ vertical slums and outside city ‘site and services’ scheme, with grants and low interest loan, by states and the Centre, with the help of the World Bank and the private sectors.
The National Slum Development Scheme (1996) aimed to upgrade 47,124 slums in country, Basic Services to Urban Por (BSUP), as part of JNNUR, tried to provide basic services in 63 of the largest cities.
The latest scheme is ‘Housing for All by 2022’ launched by the NDA government in 2015.
But all the schemes have so far failed to deliver.
The reasons of failure are many — flawed premise of looking at destitute slum dwellers as nuisance and eye sore to demolish their habitat, poor design of slum upgradation schemes and poor implementation.
If India has to turn into a developed nation by the end of Amrit Kaal, the journey has to begin with changing the lot of slum-dwellers.
THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE
The life of slum-dwellers is deplorable, but they still have disrupted habitat. The life of millions of homeless destitute is horrifying. A recent documentary ‘The Invisible Visible’ by award-winning director Kirit Khurana on the work done by NGO ‘Koshish’ a field action programme of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS} led by Mohd Tarique, is a clarion call to the nation as to why it should care for the destitute, homeless and beggars.
But first, what is homelessness?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines ‘homeless’ as those who do not live in a regular residence. The United Nations Economic and Social Council Statement defines homelessness more succinctly: “When we are talking about housing, we are not just talking about four walls and roof. The right to adequate housing is about security of tenure, affordability, access to services and cultural adequacy. It is about protection from forced eviction and displacement, fighting homelessness, poverty, and exclusion”.
We also have a Census of India definition as per which a houseless household is “households who do not live in buildings or census houses, but live in the open on roadside, pavements, in hume-pipes, under flyovers and staircases, or in the open in places of worship, mandaps, railway platforms, etc”.
What is the homeless population of India?
According to 2011 census, India has 1.77 million homeless people. These are destitute men, women, disabled, mentally ill, vagabond, elderly, and children.
However, I humbly submit the task of counting the homeless in India is more onerous than counting fish in the Indian Ocean.
Even otherwise, there is no sanctity to the data on the homeless arrived at by the point in time method enumeration.
The sum-total of homeless assessed by this writer in just top six Indian cities far exceeds the census data of the total homeless population.
And if we properly count the number of homeless within the prism of UN definition (that includes those without inadequate housing), the homeless population in India exceeds 50-60 million.
Also, it is conservatively estimated that only the number of street children in India is 18 million.
The lot of homeless destitute in India is despicable — even slum-dwellers are often beneficiaries of a few governments scheme. The only fate reserved for the homeless is criminalisation of destitution under Bombay Beggary Act, 1959, under which they are hauled up and without trial stuffed in a beggars’ home or prison for three to ten years.
How can India fetch the fruits of ‘Amrit Kaal’ with its destitute facing criminalisation. No state or city has so far complied with the Supreme Court’s 2010 liberal mandate of providing one shelter home per one lakh population of the city to house 100 homeless.
TOWARDS THE END
Although 70% of Planet Earth is endowed with water, only 1% is accessible. All forms of living creatures need water for survival. Humans need water for agriculture, industry, power plants and for domestic needs.
The water need for all sectors is growing perilously fast, making water a scarce finite resource.
History beckons water scarcity has ended civilizations.
The most pertinent is the sudden demise of Indus Valley Civilization 2,500 years ago. Archaeologists believe it was owing to severe water scarcity either due to shifting rivers or climate change.
Circa 2022.
India faces severe water crisis.
The opening line of Executive Summary of Niti Aayog Composite Water Management Index (2018) says, “India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history and millions of lives and livelihoods are under threat.”
It is a harrowing situation.
The report also adds that 600 million Indians are already in throes of acute water shortage and 200,000 die annually due to lack of access to safe water. And, 160 million Indians are already in “Day Zero” situation i.e., have no access to safe water.
If the above is not scary enough, in the aftermath of two years fight with COVID-19, domestic water demand has suddenly witnessed spike of 25% worsening the crisis.
The future prognosis is more harrowing — By 2030, the water demand is likely to exceed supply by 50%, badly hitting all types of water consumers.
Also, if the business as usual continues, the water shortage alone will account for 6% loss in GDP by 2050. This will also worsen rural-urban and gender inequities, impacting women more severely than men.
Where does the water go?
With barely 40% assured irrigation, the agriculture is the main water guzzler (85%), industry is next (10%) and domestic consumption is last (5%).
How much water does India have?
Estimates differ but as per one Niti Aayog data, the annual available water after evapotranspiration is 1999 billion cubic metres (bcm), out of which the utilizable water is 1122 bcm.
Also, India is the largest groundwater user in the world, with an estimated usage of around 251 bcm per year, more than China and USA and more than a quarter of the global total.
Instructively, in 75 years, the country’s population has galloped 415% from 340 million to 1,412 million, while per-capita water availability has dwindled 75% from 6,042 cum in 1947 to 1,816 cum in 2001, 1,544 cum in 2011, 1,486 cum in 2021. It is likely to dip below 1,400 cum in 2025, and 1,250 cum by 2050.
The report also says that India was ranked 120 amongst 122 countries in the water quality index, with 70% of water contaminated.
The problem is further aggravated with unsustainable depletion of ground water, severe pollution of surface water and massive encroachment of water bodies.
Where and how we have reached here?
Firstly, India has 18% of the global population, but only 4% of water.
Secondly, all three major consumers – agriculture, industry and domestic are guilty of predatory consumption of both surface water and ground water. For example, to produce one unit of food grain India consumes two to for times more water than China and Brazil.
Thirdly, unsurprisingly then as per Central Ground Water Board (2017), 256 of 700 districts have reported ‘critical’ or ‘over-exploited’ groundwater levels.
Fourthly, the haphazard urbanization has killed water bodies, rivers, lakes, ponds. It also has given a bye to rainwater harvesting, recharge of aquifers, proper storage, and efficient utilization.
Fifthly, 75% rural households bereft of piped potable water supply rely on contaminated water sources that pose serious risk to health.
Sixthly, worse is the water crisis in metropolises, as per NITI Aayog, report 21 major cities, would run out of groundwater soon.
Lastly, instead of treating water as a scarce finite resource to be used and priced prudently, water is considered a free gift of God to be used indiscriminately. Way back in 2002, when I worked as Team Leader of a World Bank study on Rural and Urban Water Sector reforms in Maharashtra, I found “willingness to pay but unwillingness to charge”.
What is true for Maharashtra is truer for other states.
The unwillingness to charge has conditioned citizens to treat water as free entitlement with resultant water crisis that has severe implications for sustainability of agriculture, long-term food security, livelihoods, and economic growth.
What are the governments doing?
Except some supply side interventions of recent origins, nothing. The country has a long history of poor water governance. Most states have officially doled out water as freebies to households, water meters are either absent or non-functional in cities. Villages hardly have piped water and in cities and towns, even areas with piped water hardly get supply for a couple of hours. Leakage and unaccounted for water constitutes 50%. Poor and destitute are devoid of water and so are those living in peripheral areas of cities.
Ground water is considered personal property for all types of usage — agriculture is the biggest guzzler of ground water, industries are no less a culprit and urban or rural domestic users who do not have municipal connections have no option, except using ground water and they do so indiscriminately.
Some supply side measures were initiated in 2019 by the central government:
First is the Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) as a movement for water conservation, recharge and rainwater harvesting in 256 water stressed districts now expanded to 740 districts.
Second is the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) launched in August 2019 and focussed on 1,592 water-stressed blocks in 256 districts to provide safe drinking water to all rural households by 2024 at a cost of Rs. 3.6 lakh crore.
Third is the JJM (Urban), launched as part of Union Budget 2021-22, which aims to provide universal coverage of water supply to all households through functional taps in all 4,378 statutory towns, while at a proposed outlay of Rs 2.87 trillion.
These are ambitious projects whose time came yesterday. And they have met with reasonable success — in the past three years, 7 crore rural households have got piped water connection, more than double of what was achieved since Independence.
This is notable success, but not enough to end water woes.
What is the solution then?
One, mere supply side measures will not do. The country urgently needs demand side measures focussed on absolute reduction of water consumption for all types of uses. There are sustainable lessons from countries like Israel. There are also replicable domestic measures form Gujarat and Rajasthan and Haryana.
Two, it is time for paradigm shift, to treat water as finite scarce resource and start proper pricing of it. A leaf is needed to be taken from our own history, as Chanakya says about the Mauryan period: “Water belongs to the kingdom, and users had to pay a water rate or tax to use water.”
Three, there is urgent need of large-scale measures such as rainwater-harvesting, aquifers-recharge, waterbodies, rejuvenation, and creation of new water bodies. It has to become individual, community and nation driven movement.
Water protection, conservation and rejuvenation has to be a national obsession 365 days a year.
STINK ALL THE WAY
Of the water consumed, 80% results in sewage. As there is no unanimity on how much water India uses daily, quantifying wastewater and sewage is an impossible task.
Nonetheless, some rough estimates are available.
As per the 2012 Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) and Government of India ‘Handbook on Scaling up Solid and Liquid Waste Management in Rural Areas’ estimates in 2008, rural India generated 15,000-18,000 million litres daily (MLD) of gray and black water daily. An estimate for urban India puts domestic sewage generation at 62,000 MLD.
Also, estimated number of sewage treatment plants (STP) is 920, with 23,000 MLD treatment capacity, i.e., 37% of sewage generation.
With many STPs functioning poorly or non-operational, barely 20-25% of sewage generated is treated.
This is a troubling scenario and the future is more worrisome.
As per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, daily sewage generation will double to 120,000 MLD by 2051. Also, 15,000 MLD of industrial wastewater today is generated by manufacturing clusters with only half of it treated by the 193 common effluent treatment plants (CETPs).
Worse, there is gross interstate and intercity inequity, with five states and Union Territories (UT) – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and Karnataka – accounting for 60% of the total installed sewage treatment capacity.
As per an IndiaSpend analysis of various data as early as 2015, 79% of sewage untreated was dumped in rivers, seas, lakes, ponds and wells polluting three-fourth of countries water bodies.
To give just two examples, more than 250 MLD of raw sewage flows daily to Chennai water bodies and the comparative number for Mumbai is 555 MLD.
As per GOI admission in Rajya Sabha in 2017, 85% of the country’s sewage waste goes into water bodies untreated, because it has only 30% treatment capacity, of which 50% are dysfunctional.
The National Green Tribunal in 2019 reaffirmed that over 60% of sewage generated by urban India enters water bodies untreated, resulting in pollution and making it unfit for human consumption.
As per NGT non-compliance of environmental norms that was leading to a large number of deaths, severe diseases and serious damage to air, water, and earth.
If the situation is so grave, what is the solution?
One, is zero tolerance to further water pollution. Enough damage has already been done to rivers- whether it is dumping of untreated sewage, human excreta or solid waste is a matter of detail.
Two, there is no alternative than full treatment of sewage and wastewater, but it is time to move away from the present top-down government only approach.
Three, it is time for at scale, decentralised and low‐cost sewage/wastewater treatment to eliminate the gap. The mainstreaming will need resources, policy changes, capacity building as well as large scale stakeholder involvement.
Akhileshwar Sahay is a noted infrastructure expert and President, advisory services at BARSYL, a consulting firm. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication or the company he works with.
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