The SaciWaters Conference was rich in terms of detailed and diverse case studies coming from the peri-urban areas of Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore (specifically, Nelamangala), Pondicherry, Gurugram (next to Delhi), Rajarhat (Kolkata) and even covered rapid emergence of small towns in Odisha and West Bengal . There was also a bigger presentation around Telangana Government’s ambitious Mission Bhagirath to supply beverage to all or any by 2018 and therefore the relevance of water security planning of peri-urban areas therein respect. there have been separate sessions on media and with young researchers to visualise peri-urban as an emerging category in these spaces. Some key issues seem to emerge from these set of presentations and discussions around them, which can demand our attention as we build our approach towards them.
They are:
The overall nature of peri-urban space as a category itself must be studied intimately
It is an area , which is forever in transition, where the cities are expanding or new towns are arising . Hence, whilst in due process of law , peri-urban areas may get completely urbanised, there’ll always be newer areas coming under this category. we’ve a category, therefore, which is transient and yet perennial in nature. Secondly, we’d like to seem at this space in its variability, its specificities. So, while there are peri-urban areas arising as a results of expansion of the metropolises, arising of small towns in pre-dominantly rural locations (an ongoing study by Tathagata Chatterjee and his colleague from XIMB on small towns of Odisha and W. Bengal is sort of illuminating) thanks to surplus investment coming from the rich farmers would be another end of this spectrum. an equivalent study acknowledged how between the 2 census periods (from 2001 to 2011) the amount of census towns had almost tripled from 1362 in 2001 to 3894 in 2011.
A third but very critical aspect of this is often the changing nature of economics of this space, which stands within the midst of rural-urban continuum. most the papers emphasized, that from being a source of subsistence for local communities, resources like land (for real estate) and water became commercial commodities for larger exploitation to serve the most city’s inhabitants on one hand, while also creating an off-the-cuff market around poor, migrants, etc because the population in these peri-urban area expands. The latter is that the second aspect of the changing nature of the peri-urban space where you see an outsized influx of migrants changing the socio-economic profile of the space altogether. All of this needs more in-depth study, accumulation of knowledge sets and knowledge gathering to know this phenomenon further. The question is additionally critical in terms of self-imagination of this space, because it came out through a study of Pondicherry, where the longer term imagination of various stakeholders ranged from being a tourist hub like Goa, to an industrial hub like Chennai and to a farmers’ idyllic heaven.
There is a requirement to seem at the interior differentiation within the peri-urban category
While peri-urban as a geographical space itself must be checked out from different vantage points, it must be recognised that this is often an area where settled societies and moving populations are in constant influx, during a dynamic space. So while you’ll have staple categories of caste based, occupation based, gender based hierarchies existing in these locations, they are available under duress with newer categories of migrants versus non-migrants, farmers versus the service class, informal labour versus the formal labour etc. There are further sub-categories like bourgeoisie and rich migrants versus labor migrants (as in Gurugram). Many of those spaces see different sorts of residential patterns supported the changing economic profile of the space. This naturally results in diverse set of tensions among populations living cheek by jowl. However, this, as was argued by Dinesh Abrol, also opens the likelihood of inter-class collaborations on common issues. the general impact on a problem like water security has got to be seen from these lenses also .
The emergence of a posh network of formal and informal market around water and sanitation especially round the poor and therefore the migrant labour
Quite a few case studies, ranging from SaciWater’s own study on peri-urban Hyderabad showed how there’s a posh nexus of informal and formal market during this space. It ranges from private tanker operators, RO water suppliers, government or large private sector suppliers which originate to extract water from these areas so as to provide to the mid-town areas, while also selling an equivalent to the poor and therefore the migrants at discriminatory prices in these very spaces. In some places existing Gram Panchayats do the price-negotiations, in other, local entrepreneurs are suppliers of water services or as within the case of Nelamangala near Bengaluru, of sanitation services including faecal sludge disposal in absence of a sewer network.
The solutions for an equivalent also got to be checked out during a nuanced way. To counter this ‘planned informality’ (as was mentioned by a scholar), can we need an outsized structural response of ‘planned formality’. This appeared to be evident within the case of Telangana government’s ambitious Operation Bhagirath, its flagship beverage supply programme through an ambitious investment of over 49,000 crore rupees, or can we still search for a more nuanced response which takes the specificities of the peri-urbanisation in its wake?
The need to locate a proper institutional architecture of governance for this space
It seems there are one too many institutional arrangements for this space, right from Gram Panchayats to municipalities, with different services to be delivered through different bodies. during a chaotic anarchy like this, nobody seems to be mandated enough to deliver services so as to be held accountable. The challenge is further complicated once we realise that perhaps there couldn’t be one model of institutional governance, given the varying nature of those spaces. More importantly, the perennial question, where are the institutionalised spaces for ensuring people’s participation within the planning of those services, especially those that , in a way, are the new citizens, the migrant poor?
What is the status of existing policy regulatory environment in terms of basic services like water and sanitation?
This question should have come earlier as this is often related with the question of governance but is vital in itself when large-scale extraction of resources is underway. The challenge is multiplied once we see that for a precious commodity like land, many policy frameworks begin to jostle for his or her say while, water, no less precious, gets ignored. a stimulating case was visible within the context of small towns’ study, which showed how community ponds were being converted to residential areas because of rising demands of land . How can we review policy environment vis-à-vis regulatory framework around extraction of water or conversion of water bodies into something else?
There is a bigger got to create a clear space for peri-urban as a category within the public debates
This would demand a greater engagement with media platforms of varied kinds. While an outsized populations lives in these spaces and yet we don’t see this as a category worth thinking through. How can we capture the general public imagination demands in-depth thinking, which might also perhaps open ways for concerted public action?
Some follow up questions for us:
How can we check out peri-urban add our own work areas? What quite mapping must be done to interact with this space during a focused way?
We need to review Mission Bhagirath itself in thorough as a bigger solution to beverage . How can we set about it?
The article is taken reference from wateraidindia
