A survey published by Forbes Magazine lists Mumbai and Delhi among the world’s 25 dirtiest cities. Oh, how unfortunately news for an Indian like me. But does anybody care? Does anyone realise that our cities have turned into massive slums with open sewers and garbage dumps? Often the visitors complain but we argue with them and say that dirt is in their eyes and not in our cities and refuse to admit that our cities stink, but we alone are responsible for this mess.

The city life has improved a lot in most parts of the world but ours have declined instead of progressing. The city has grown in size, area and population but urban planning has failed to match that growth. A city does not become better by showing improvement in infrastructure. Planning is such an elaborate exercise in India with a specialised bureaucracy that it looks great on paper but in reality we are hopeless planners. We, the people of India are consuming more goods than ever and there is also a significant increase in the volumes of waste. Have our urban planners and civic officials worried enough about how to handle the flip side of high economic growth and consumer spending?

European cities were in a similar state in the late 19th century. They choked under industrial pollution, animal waste and sewage. The rivers that flowed past them were devoid of fish and other aquatic life. Urban planners and civil society came together and with the aid of new and clean technologies made a huge turnaround. Look at the Thames river in London today, it sparkles. It is really important for us to have such a turn around in India.

We can begin with improving health and sanitation services in cities. We need the use of latest technology in these services. Most of our sanitation workers work with brooms and bare hands, which explains the high rate of morbidity among them. Basic equipment like gloves and gumboots should be made a must for workers while vacuum cleaners and mechanised dumpers should replace brooms and dump carts. Citizens should be educated methodically on how to lead urban lives. Recycle the waste material, which is a major and innovative industry in India but this huge work force is in the unorganised sector and is hardly given its due. Urban planning is not merely about making grandiose plans, it’s about effective management of available resources, human and material. Start now before our cities turn into complete disasters.

Random Posts