On birthday,Mayawati goes to Town

The city of 12.5 lakh residents receives over 25 lakh tourists annually. It is estimated that despite having three UNESCO World Heritage Sites,the 175 rooms per lakh tourists that Agra has,compared to the national average of 423,is a reflection of the fact that the city itself does not attract tourists. Probably the waste off the streets will encourage more to stay.

Agras upcoming plant is just one of the many initiatives that the Mayawati government is taking for urban Uttar Pradesh. In a state where cities have never been on the radar of political parties,Mayawati has now changed the focus.

On her birthday on January 15,she dedicated Lucknows new sewage treatment plant,the largest in Asia,to the people of UP. The plant has the capacity to treat the 345 million litres of sewage that the city produces every day. The previous plant could process only 42 million litres and most of the waste would find its way into the Gomti,polluting the citys most important source of drinking water.

A year ago,Kanpur,a city that regularly occupies the top slot as Indias most polluted, got a solid waste treatment plant which experts count among the best in the country. It treats about 900 tonnes of garbage.

The two plants are among the several that have been planned in the first systematic effort to tackle the problem of urban waste in Uttar Pradesh. And its not just the big citiessmall towns too have finally found a place on the map of urban development.

In all,big sewage treatment plants are being built in nine of the states cities,including Kanpur,Allahabad and Varanasi,which have regularly been dumping their waste into the Ganga. Construction of solid waste management plants is on in 26 towns. In fact,the plants in Kanpur,Kannauj and Muzaffarnagar are ready and the rest are expected to become operational by the end of this year.

Alok Ranjan,UPs principal secretary,Urban Development,says,Never before have urban infrastructure projects been implemented in the state on this scale. No city in Uttar Pradesh has sewer lines which cover an area of more than 20 to 30 per cent. With the implementation of these projects,the area in the cities to be covered by sewer lines will be as high as 80 per cent. In Lucknow,new sewer lines running over 700 km are being constructed.

The urban intervention has taken years in coming. For decades,cities in UP have struggled to keep their head over filth and smaller towns have fared no better on the cleanliness index. Political connections too did not ensure cleanlinessneither Mainpuri,the constituency of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav,former prime minister Chandra Shekhars Ballia,nor the Gandhi borough of Rae Bareli had a proper waste disposal system. Now for the first time,sewage treatment plants have been planned in Mainpuri and Ballialand has already been acquired for them. In Rae Bareli,a solid waste management plant is almost ready.

The work is being done on private-public partnership under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). For schemes under JNNURM,the Centre provides 50 per cent funding,the state government 20 per cent and the local body has to bear the remaining cost. But in most cases,the state governments share turns out to be larger since most urban local bodies are in no position to pay.

While JNNURM may have been the UPA governments brainchild,its for the first time since its launch in UP in 2005 that schemes under it are being implemented with such zeal and on such a scale. In the last two fiscals,2008-9 and 2009-10,we were able to start infrastructure projects in over 50 cities of UP, says Navneet Sehgal,Secretary of Urban Development and also to the Chief Minister. The estimated cost of the projects is Rs 6,900 crore.

Other infrastructural upgrade too is on its way in the state. Seven citiesLucknow,Kanpur,Agra,Varanasi,Allahabad,Meerut and Mathurahave already got 1,120 low floor AC and non-AC buses and 200 more are to follow.

Besides schemes under JNNURM,the states Department of Urban Development is also implementing several schemes for improving sanitation,pollution control,drinking water and conservation of lakes. The Mayawati governments flagship scheme,the Kanshi Ram Urban Poor Housing Scheme,announced in 2008,aims to build one lakh dwellings every year for the next five years. The UP government has also dipped into its own kitty to execute the Kanshi Ram Nagar Vikas Yojna for improving basic amenities in small and medium towns. The funds under the scheme are provided by the Urban Development Department to urban local bodies. For 2010-11,the outlay for the scheme is Rs 225 crore.

Lake conservation is another scheme financed by the state government. The beautification on Mansi Ganga lake in Mathura district at the cost of Rs 10 crore was completed recently. Another scheme for the conservation of the Ramgarh Taal in Gorakhpur,which will cost the government Rs 127 crore,has been approved.

Drinking water supply for Agra is another important project being implemented by the Urban Development Department. The project,slated to be completed by 2014,will install a 130-km pipeline to bring Ganga water from Palra in Bulandshahr to Agra.

The interest in urban renewal has people excited but experts sound a word of caution. Sanjay Vijay Vergiya,head of the Lucknow-based Centre for Policy Analysis,says,The construction of Sewage Treatment Plants and Solid Waste Management Plants in such large numbers in the state is important. It will,to a large extent,address the problem of river pollution but there is uncertainty over the sustainability of the infrastructure.

Dr Vipin Kumar,consultant to the Uttarakhand Government on urban development and the resource person at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy,Mussoorie,says,No one can question the need for cleaning rivers and improving sanitation standards in urban centres. But for the disposal of solid waste,the UP government should have opted for a model which ensures decentralisation,community participation and value addition in solid waste collected from urban centres,like plastic.

With inputs from Deepu Sebastian Edmond