Swatch Delhi, Swasth Delhi (Clean Delhi, Healthy Delhi)

Sustainable Water and Sanitation solutions for the urban poor

Funded by: WaterAid

Rapid urbanization, in wake of huge economic growth, coupled with shrinking job opportunities in rural areas has led to ‘urbanization of poverty’. In the absence of affordable housing for the urban poor, slums have proliferated in all urban centers of India and the most visible impact can be seen in metropolitan areas. Municipal bodies and utility service providers are constrained by capacities and resources to tackle this challenge and the poorest of the poor, living in slum clusters, end up receiving extremely low levels of service delivery for water supply, sanitation and solid waste management. There is a huge disparity between the level of service prevailing in planned settlements and unorganized slum clusters, this leads to both social discontent and frustration among the poor.

Delhi has over 14 million people, of which more than 4 million live in slum colonies or slum like conditions, proliferating rapidly and lacking even the most basic amenities like water and sanitation.

Delhi has the distinction of being the most urbanized state in the country with 93% of the population living in urban areas while only 7% live in rural areas. Delhi is the third largest, fastest growing and most densely populated city in the India. Delhi has been growing approximately by 1000 people for the past many years; Migration has roughly averaged 1.3 times the natural growth in Delhi. The city has witnessed an increase of population at a phenomenal rate of 4.6% annually which is double the national average of 2.34% and more than the urban rate of growth of any other city in the country. The density of population is 9264 persons per sq. km. as per Census 2001 – the highest in the country. The state of Delhi sprawls in an area of 1486 sq. km. of which the developed urban area is 525 sq. km. only. Thirty five percent of the total area and urban extensions as well as urbanized rural area are spread over 961 sq. km. As Delhi swells due to larger influx of migrants from smaller cities, towns and rural areas, with unmatched provision of housing and basic amenities, ‘ informal settlements’ increase in numbers, sizes and densities.

The UN declared Millennium Development goals mandate universal access to basic services but we are far away from realizing this target.

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Swatch Delhi, Swasth Delhi (Clean Delhi, Healthy Delhi)