By IANS,
New Delhi : Open defecation in Savda Ghevra, one of Delhi’s largest resettlement neighbourhoods, could end soon with the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence(CURE), a non-profit organisation, bringing an award-winning sewage plan to the 250-acre enclave.
CURE Director Renu Khosla and London Metropolitan University research scholar Julia Kings Tuesday announced the project at a talk titled ‘Pani, Potties aur Makaan,’ at the India International Centre.
“The community sewage project will be a part of the Sustainable Livelihoods Project(SLP) of CURE that started in 2008 to rehabilitate the slum families,” Khosla said.
The community sewage project will allow small households of the crowded community to have individual toilets.
In cities, the sewage system is provided by municipal bodies but often the sewer is not laid in fringe areas like Savda Ghevra. In such cases, an in-house septic tank is constructed to store the toilet waste from the household. However, individual septic tanks are not practical for small houses of this colony.
“This project will enable a block of 700 houses to have on-site toilets and connect to a community septic tank, instead of individual tanks,” Khosla added.
She said the project was ready and they were “just waiting for the government to give us a go”.
The decentralised sewage concept bagged the third prize in ‘Next Generation’ category of Holcim Awards in Singapore and its implementation at Savda Ghevra is a part of Kings’ doctorate. While she agreed the project was ready for trial, she accepted that there could be difficulties.
Recalling an instance, she said how an old man refused to build a toilet as he didn’t feel the need for one while the two women in the house actually wanted one.
“We need to communicate more effectively. Especially with the decisions that involve involve added costs are even more challenging to introduce, as the poor often adopt measures that are cost effective in the short-term,” Kings said.
CURE’s SLP initiative aims at providing structural and design innovations that help create better living spaces for the residents. The initiative is aided by Jamshedji Tata Trust.