Learning from Durban on water supply and sanitation
|
The ‘Switch Summit’ in Holland gave an insight into efficient water/sanitation management which could be an eye-opener
|
Photo:M.A.Sriram
Precious: Water must be treated as a human right.
The city of Durban has a water supply and sanitation utility run by a company called Ethekwini Water and Sanitation Services. It provides 900 million litres of water per day to around 400,000 connections in the Durban area. It collects 500 million litres of wastewater per day and treats it all in 29 decentralised wastewater treatment plants.
There are several interesting ideas being tried out by the utility which needs a close study by water utilities in India.
As a pro-poor policy the utility is committed to delivering 6,000 litres of water a month free to households as part of the South African Government’s policy of treating water as a human right.
It does so by providing a 200 litre poly-tank to every household which is filled up every night between midnight and 2 a.m.
Every family is thus given access to 200 litres of water daily, without any connection charge or meter charge. Of course, subsequent supply is metered and charged on an Increasing Block Tariff based on consumption.
The utility also has an innovative policy for sanitation in the rural area that it serves. It has helped construct 80,000 ecosan toilets.
Here urine and faeces are collected separately and then reused as nutrients. These toilets demand no water and are the best means to reach out to a dispersed populace. Speedy Moodaliar, Project Manager, Ethekwini, suggests that more than 90 per cent of these toilets are being used thanks to a strong community outreach programme.
In dense settlements, Ethekwini has provided common ablution blocks with urine diversion toilets and handed them to caretakers from the community.
Having inherited a legacy from the previous apartheid regime, the utility also has to take care of 60,000 pit latrines in homes. It has evolved some simple evacuation systems such as the ‘honeysucker’ and a manually-operated deep lifting spade to help empty these pits mechanically, safely and hygienically.
This facility is provided free to the poor households in the Durban area. The utility is also setting up a series of grey water treatment plants using the DEWATS — decentralised waste water treatment systems — approach. Anaerobic baffled reactors and membrane-based systems treat the water to high quality for reuse in agriculture. The utility is looking to generate power from the reservoirs which supply the 900 mld water to the city. Cities such as Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore should learn from the experience of Durban and find innovative solutions for the challenge of supplying water and providing sanitation to citizens.
S.VISHWANATH,
BANGALORE.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Property Plus
Coimbatore
