- Notes - Priti -
Case studies from my work as a young development engineer in India - Priti Parikh
Before talking about my experience of development, I would like to talk about my own subject, which is water and sanitation. Not enough of the world has access to water of sufficient quality, and unless we meet targets to halve the number of people without access to water by 2015, then other goals can't be met.
In 2001 I was thrown into an exiting challenge in 2001 in Bhopal, which has in interesting architecture and history, but was the site of a chemical spillage in 1984.
Slum networking - I didn't even know where to start. As an engineer, I had to look at the existing physical infrastructure, but also other things such as the economic activity. How can you improve the slums if the whole city needs improving first and where were the resources to come from? At the other end of the spectrum we got very positive responses. They said they were willing to pay for physical infrastructure, but that they needed land tenure and the ability to pay in short installments.
I asked why land security was so important. They said that if they had land tenure it meant that the government wasn't about to throw them out, so it became worth investing in their infrastructure and possible to talk to banks about loans. That small piece of paper could really change their lives.
This picture contrasts different levels of infrastructure and the different qualities of life that ensue.
On solid waste I wanted to highlight three components of waste management. [Litter bins, slum collection system] Here is a picture of landscaping solutions both municipal and in the slums. The municipal trees mostly died and were very expensive, while the community projects were cheap and attractive. This public toilet is totally neglected and unused but this one is owned and managed by the community and is clean and useful.
The only way to get the community to invest in these projects was by obtaining secure tenure. They agreed to invest a third of the money required.
This diagram gives you an idea of the network of agencies and department I had to deal with when working with the Bhopal city government. To implement this project I created a much simpler structure between acting agencies within the project [spider diagram]
In the Gujarat earthquake, I was 200km away where 4M people came out on the streets in fear and panic. As an engineer, what should I do? Many people were running around and not helping at all. there was no leadership. Many people started to arrive from outside India with cowboy solutions. An organization called CEPT (Centre for environmental Planning and Technology) volunteered the job of rapid visual damage assessment. One CEPT team consists of a team leader (I was one), a student of engineering or architecture / planning, a photographer and a representative of the city government.
I realized that many factors influence the extent of the damage, apart, of course from the intensity of the quake. Cantilevers are very dangerous. Here is a picture of a water tank that fell off a roof. Asymmetrical plans of buildings have difficulty withstanding earthquake forces. Poor workmanship. Non-ductile junctions. Staircases collapsing can trap people on upper floors. Technically buildings should provide underground parking but instead they usually build the building on pillars and park on the ground floor. This building collapsed on its pillars.
In three months CEPT assessed 6670 buildings, and two years down the line, the reconstruction is complete. They lobbied the council to set building standards. A few people were unhappy with CEPTs assessments but the court upheld CEPTs work in all cases.
Whilst talking about legal issues I would like to highlight a case in Maharastra where a slum was offered in-situ resettlement. I had to plan the cluster layout meeting all the regulations. I made 15 or 16 plans and they approved this one. You can see how many staircases there are to allow for future expansion. Here you can see the whole communities' keenness to participate in this project.