Suchergebnisse

This is a conference paper. ; The high rate of population growth in developing countries in recent times has created intricate sanitation problems which governments can no longer ignore. The problem is further accentuated by the constant drift of rural dwellers to the few urban centres in search of jobs and other opportuni­ties offered by urbanization. Urbanization and its concomitant housing problems have created the situation where urban slums have become a regular feature of most urban centres. High population density, temporary structures used as living quarters and lack of proper sanitation are conspi­cuous features of these slums. The predominant method of excreta collection known to these slum dwellers is the night soil system. This paper examines some popular methods of excreta collection and puts forward another possible method of excreta management in high density urban slums.

Four slum colonies in the satellite township of Panchkula, on the periphery of Chandigarh, are profiled. In some of the colonies, hardly one fourth of the children were attending school. Health Services were poor and water was scarce. Lack of sewerage facilities, due to which slum dwellers had to defecate in the open, added to the squalor. In contrast to this dismal picture, in Azad Colony, most of the children were encouraged to go to school; and in one of the slum settlements-Indira Colony, due to the efforts of the pradhan, groups of children were being educated in the juggis itself. Residents of Azad colony had also collected money and harnessed skilled and unskilled labour available locally to provide better drainage and sanitation. The general tendency in the other colonies was to depend on succor provided by the State machinery, which only results in a complete denial of basic infrastructure.