A stinking, illegal, city of slums
By Neeraj Mahajan & Ajit Ujjainkar
New Delhi & Mumbai: Can you
imagine a city in modern India – that even today discharges untreated sewage
into a drain that eventually meets the very River that is also its main source of
drinking water? Can you imagine an industrial town – not in a remote part of
the country but on the periphery of Mumbai that would still take atleast four
more years—i.e. by 31st December 2016 to be 100% ‘open defecation-free’? And
atleast that much time to dispose of all the waste- both solid and liquid
generated in a safe and scientific way? A modern city where Rs. 101 crore is
required to be invested over a period of four years to ensure safe access to
toilet facility to each citizen?
Can you imagine a city in
Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) where only about 72% of the total households
have access to individual toilets connected to sewerage network, septic tanks
or other suitable transfer mechanism? Almost 15% of these households still
depend upon shared or group toilets. And the rest either visit public toilets
or go out in the open? About 3% of the population, i.e., about 2,900 households
resort to open defecation. Open defecation is common to almost all its wards.
A city that chokes and
stinks in its own filth and shit -- Ulhasnagar -- a medium sized town in Mumbai
Metropolitan Region (MMR) in Thane District of Maharashtra—about 58 Kilometers
from Mumbai is an urban development nightmare. It may be the only 13-sq km
township in the whole country that just might make it to the Guinness Book of
world Records for regularizing as many as 1,40,000 illegal structures with a
first-of-its-kind executive government order. (In 2006, the state passed an ordinance
regularizing all existing illegal structures).
Bordered by the Ulhas River
in North, Kalyan in the West and Ambernath in East and South (between 19.20°N
Latitude and 73.10° E Longitude) the city of Ulhasnagar with an estimated
population of 6,10,000 spread over an area of 13.34 sq. km is one of the
filthiest cities in India and possibly the world. It is one city that neighbouring
Kalyan, Ambernath and Dombivali may not like to associate with.
An unhygienic city of slums,
poverty, death and disease --Ulhasnagar has the unique distinction of being one
of the most unplanned, corrupt, over-populated and under-developed cities in
India. With an average household size of 4.55 and some 1,34,065 households the
city there is already a great strain on the available land and the
infrastructure services in the city as well as proliferation of slums and
insanitary conditions in the city. According to an estimate close to 1,72,129
slum dwellers forms almost 28% of the city’s population. Almost 21 % of the
total area of Ulhasnagar - 289 hectares is urban slum including 133 hectares of
declared slum and 156 hectares undeclared slum.
As per the City Sanitation
Rating compiled by the Union Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India,
Ulhasnagar ranks 137 and fall in the Black category which means considerable effort
is required to become a completely sanitized city. Ulhasnagar managed a score
of 38.34 just a shade better than 33 – a sort of danger zone requiring immediate
remedial action.
At the rate at which its
unhealthy belly is bulging uncontrollably – Ulhasnagar will soon bypass Mumbai
and Kolkata, as the most densely populated cities of India.
Situated on the mainline
Mumbai-Pune Central Rail route, Ulhasnagar is a fairly important township in
the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and important industrial and trading
centers as far as Mumbai and Maharashtra are concerned. But that is where the
similarity ends. For all practical purposes though geographically close to
Mumbai –Ulhasnagar remains one of its poor, old distant and neglected cousins
about whom nobody cares. Not even the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation and a
handful of builders who only wish to fill their own individual pockets – even
if at the cost of sacrificing the public interest.
Why then is the media
silent? Why doesn’t anyone write about it--- you might ask? Well the simplest
answer to this is that we are living in a world where just about everything can
be bought or sold. The local media has either been pocked or silenced. There is
no such thing as independent and responsible journalism in Ulhasnagar.
Recently the town elder men
and politicians have come up with a wonderful scheme to rehabilitate homeless
local journalists who have been promised low cost homes. This is all it took to
silence all voice of decent and set examples of democratic governance.
Ulhasnagar was born as
Kalyan Military Transit Camp under the British army in 1942. After World War
II, the camp moved out, the land remained vacant. So when a large number of
Sindhis migrated from West Pakistan to Mumbai the Ministry of Relief and
Rehabilitation, Government of India provided them shelter. Initially it was
first called Sindhunagar because of largely Sindhi inhabitants before being renamed
as Ulhasnagar in 1949. One thing in common
– throughout its history is the role of powerful contractors and vested
interests trying to tightly control every development activity in the city.
Today the only difference is
that these contractors, brokers and noblemen have been replaced by builders,
politicians and Councilors who want their own interest to prevail and nothing
that they do not want should happen in the city. Their endeavor always is to go
for the ‘soft target’ dominate and encroach upon the land meant for social
amenities and infrastructure. Apart from this they allow many illegal
structures to come up on residential as well as change the land use from
residential to commercial or from agricultural to residential.
The deep-rooted nexus
between builders and politicians is responsible for the mushrooming growth of illegal
structures and the catch 22 situation where despite declaring 300 buildings as
hazardous Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation prefers to remain silent. Several of
these buildings in precarious condition, have been duely ‘inspected and passed’
by the UMC officials. Recently two town planners – were arrested for allowing
inferior constructions violating the norms.
The story of Ulhasnagar’s
neglect started from its first development plan in 1969 remained. It remained in
force for 22 years till 1991 but was not implemented completely. It laid the
foundation for unplanned development of the city.
Recently Maharashtra CM Prithviraj
Chavan announced a policy offering Floor Space Index (FSI) of 4 to builders
having layouts of 4,000 sqm or one acre for cluster redevelopment in the Mumbai
Metropolitan Region. This allowed developers to build four times more. Earlier
the applicable FSI was 1.33 in South Mumbai and of 1 in the suburbs. This has
come in as a blessing in disguise for builders in Ulhasnagar, Thane,
Kalyan-Dombivli, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar and Mira-Bhayander. The noble idea
behind cluster projects and higher FSI was to ease the property prices to make
it affordable for people staying in slums and illegal buildings but this scheme
has become a tool in the hand of the powerful builder lobby to further their
own interests.
The all powerful builder-Corporators
lobby is known to exploit all loopholes in the system. In 2003 the UMC is
understood to have filed an affidavit in Bombay High Court acknowledging that it
had only developed seven plots and the rest had been encroached and unclaimed
by it. Seven years later, all the open plots have been encroached.
The Ulhasnagar Municipal
Corporation recently announced its new Development Plan – which has been called
“Ulhasnagar Destruction Plan’ by the local population.
The proposed plan like the
hurriedly drawn redcliff line that created a wedge between India and Pakistan
-- affect many shops and residential properties -- not only on the main roads
but also in the by-lanes. Many residential areas have suddenly been shown as
reserved for green zones. Also many industrial zones were converted to
commercials zones in the proposed plan. Similarly
the land use of many existing schools has been converted into residential
zones. The Proposed plan also makes a mockery of the planning process by
ignoring the need to build civic amenities like schools, playgrounds, gardens,
parking lots, community halls, libraries, hospitals, business centres, sewage
treatment plants and cremation grounds.
Central Railway after
spending Rs 25 lakh on the renovation of Ulhasnagar railway station suddenly
now finds that the Railway station – for all practical purposes ‘does not
exist’. It is not even mentioned in the City’s Development plan or town
planning map. Ulhasnagar is one of the busiest stations on the Karjat – Kalyan
route and generating revenue of Rs 2 crore per month from more than 75,000
commuters daily.
Some other peculiarities of
Ulhasnagar are that only 8 MLD (29 % of actual design capacity) of sewage is
treated in the STP, as some sewer line is not connected with the mains. Out of
126km only 18.1 Km (i.e,14%) roads have been developed as per the DP width. 14Km
of roads are required to be developed for 100ft ROW and at present no road has
been developed for 100 ft. About 97km of roads are to be developed to desired
DP width. Despite high demand from vehicular traffic parking facilities are not
available in the densely populated residential areas. As a result both 2 and 4
wheelers park on the main roads. There is also no truck-tempo stand.
