ACCCRN – City Vulnerability Assessment Report 50
Table 12: Estimates Social Capacity Index range across Socio economic classes in
Indore city
Sl.- No.
Social Capacity Index
Slum Lower
Middle Mixed
Upper City
Total
1 0-2
- -
- 4
2 2-4
19 29
22 26
15 23
3 4-6
57 31
45 47
41 43
4 6-8
6 9
19 -
24 13
5 8-10
17 32
15 27
16 20
Grand-Total 100
100 100
100 100
100
Source: TARU Primary Study, 2009
The social capacity among the poor is comparable to that of other SECs in Indore. There has been a continuous building up of social capacity mainly due to number of poor focused
development programmes launched by the State and NGOs during last decade along with strong patronage culture developed by political parties.
It is common to find even the poor able to access the political leaders for getting better urban services as well as to express the grievances. Water supply is one such sector, where it is
easier to get the needsgrievances addressed through political patronage rather than formal grievance redressal system of the utility. Water scarcity has reportedly created strong sense of
cohesiveness among communities, born out of need for collective bargaining.
Due to this, many communities have been able to get community bore wells, water storage tanks and other facilities. It has also resulted in the political stakeholders using water as a
tool to garner support. Unfortunately this tendency sidelined the main issue of accountability and governance in water service delivery system. So despite fairly high social capacity, the
communities are unable to derive long term benefits from their social capacity.
Fragmented communities with low educational levels and knowledge are unable to raise the debate beyond the urgent issues that can be addressed by local leaders. This inability rises out
of history of patronage and backwardness of this region.
4.9.4 Drainage and Sewerage vulnerability index
The condition of sewerage and drainage is poor in most areas due to limited investments in the past along with poor maintenance. Some of the poorer sections of the city face year round
waterlogging due to lack of drainage or sewerage. Large sections of the new areas included in to the municipality still rely on septic tanks. The low permeability of black cotton soils
2
as well as poor solid waste collection system further aggravate this situation. During and after
rainy seasons, outbreaks of mosquito borne diseases like malaria and dengue are quite common as reported earlier. In addition to water logging, waterborne diseases like jaundice
are reported in summers, indicating poor sanitary conditions.
The estimates of drainage and sewerage index across SECs are presented in the following Table 13.
2
Black cotton soils have very low permeability as well as expand on wetting. The percolation is low and the stagnant pools of water can be seen in areas with poor drainage.
ACCCRN – City Vulnerability Assessment Report 51
Table 13: Estimates of Drainage and sewerage services vulnerability index range
across Socio economic classes in Indore city
Sl. No.
Drainage and sewerage
vulnerability index Slum
Lower Middle
Mixed Upper
Grand Total
1 0-1
3 19
26 -
9 18
2 1-2
- 3
- -
- 1
3 2-3
35 52
20 53
19 32
4 3-4
- 14
1 -
11 4
5 4-5
1 4
24 34
21 20
6 5-6
48 7
20 13
28 20
7 6-7
- -
8 -
5 5
8 7-8
13 -
- -
7 1
Grand Total 100
100 100
100 100
100 Source: TARU Primary Study, 2009
The analysis indicates that there are two types of slums, with the first group having minimal drainage and sewerage while the latter has fairly good facilities. This is due to focused
investments under many pro-poor programmes including Madhya Pradesh Urban Services for Poor MPUSP.
The results also indicate that significant proportion of middle class and upper SECs also have problems of sewerage septic tanks, soak pits etc and drainage is inadequate. As per NIPFP,
only 55 population has access to sewerage network and 80 of sewers are underutilized for want of maintenance and only 20 of roads have storm water drainage NIPFP 2006.
The 2009 floods affected many such areas across the city, reinforce the results. Most of such locations are in peripheral areas, where these services were not installed. The two Sewage
treatment plants, set up during last five years, face shortage of sewage water for effective running of these plants, while most of the sewage flows through the natural drainage. Most of
the houses connect their sewerage pipes directly in to the Nala as shown in the following Fig. 18.
ACCCRN – City Vulnerability Assessment Report 52
FIG. 18 : SEWERAGE SYSTEM AND STP
Source: Urban environment workbook 2006
The IMC had laid trunk sewers earlier, but they are mostly nonfunctional and the sewage overflows in to the natural drainage lines in many places and they have become de-facto
sewage channels in most places. The yellow lines in the Figure above indicating small diameter sewer lines are often directly connected to the nala and no longer drain in to the
trunk sewers. The city is installing new sewerage system across the city under JNNURM progamme. The effectiveness of this system will largely depend on the maintenance, which is
a major issue as the past projects. Under MPUSP project supported by DFID, drainage and sewerage facilities are being provided some of the slums on priority basis. However, unless
the solid waste collection system is improved, major maintenance issues are likely to crop up.
ACCCRN – City Vulnerability Assessment Report 53
The drainage system is choked at many places by solid wastes that are left to accumulate in many parts of the city. Indore’s solid waste collection system is very poor and efforts to
improve it through PPP projects have failed to take off due to a variety of conflicts. The current solid waste collection arrangements at the household level are presented in the
following Table 14.
Table 14: Solid waste collection arrangements across SECs
Sl. No. HH level arrangements
Slums Lower Middle Mixed Upper Sample Total
1 House to house collection
19 31
64 57
63 42
2 Dumping in waste bin
19 10
10 15
13 13
3 Dump on streetoutside
41 40
23 27
23 33
4 In the
rivernallah 16
14 3
2 1
9 5 Burn
5 4
1 1
3 Grand Total
100 100
100 100
100 100
Total Households 420
250 410
60 110
1250 Source: TARU Primary Study, 2009
With more than half the households dumping the solid wastes in to open or nalas, the collection system is unable to collect and transport, resulting in clogging of the drainage
system which further deteriorates the environment and increases waterlogging. Also some of the garbage is collected through informal arrangements like maids and sweepers, which are
dumped at the vacant sites and not transported. Burning is done when the solid waste builds up, which increases the air pollution problems especially due to presence of significant
proportion of plastics in the solid wastes.
With the increased frequency of heavy rainfall, solid waste problem is likely to amplify water logging problems as the 2009 floods demonstrated. Institutional stakeholders have focused on
further investments in sewerage and drainage systems without addressing the issue of maintenance of the existing systems. The failure of sewage infrastructure developed under
the Indore Habitat development project demonstrates the need for continued focus on maintenance and operational changes in responsible utility departments.
4.9.5 Water scarcity index
