4.3 Infrastructure Arrangements

Water Supply

Most of the central areas of Visakhapatnam city are well served by piped water supply. This supply has also been extended to many low income and slum areas under various programmes where the service is mainly by piped standposts. Other settlements, not covered by piped water, rely on handpumps and old wells. Slum communities spend much time in collecting and storing water.

Storm Drainage

Being a high precipitation area with undulating terrain, storm drainage assumes great importance and the main city is well drained. Storm drains are also invariably found in nearly all low income and slum areas. Here, lane paving and storm drains were earlier provided under the ODA scheme.

Sanitation

There are grave deficiencies in the sewerage and sanitation services available in most parts of Visakhapatnam. Generally the middle and high income residents have septic tanks attached to their houses. The low income and slum communities have to rely on community latrines and low cost sanitation options like single and double pit latrines. There is also substantial open air defecation mainly amongst children. While a sewerage project is currently being implemented in the city, low cost sanitation has received concerted attention in the past under Government of India as well as ODA/DFID schemes. The details of these schemes are as follows:

Government of India/MCV Scheme

DFID assisted Scheme at China Gadila (Bath and Latrine)

ODA/DFID assisted projects have been implemented in Visakhapatnam city from 1988-98. Project costing for the three main projects totalled about Rs. 385.5 million with the following breakup:-

Solid Waste Management

Visakhapatnam generates about 450-500 tonnes of garbage daily. Of this quantity the MCV is able to lift only 350-400 tonnes every day. This is because about 20 per cent of the garbage is dumped in low lying and other areas which are inaccessible to MCV vehicles or are outside their area of jurisdiction.

The MCV has promoted a number of initiatives to improve the solid waste operation. These include privatization in some localities and provision of dumper placers along roads and lanes. Tricycles have also been provided to a voluntary organisation which collects garbage house-to-house and brings garbage daily to the MCV's collection points. A garbage based fertilizer plant has also been set up to which only organic and other biodegradable garbage is sent for the production of organic compost. The MCV transports the city garbage mainly to a dumping yard at Kapulanppada which is 21 km away.

The low income and slum settlements suffer from a number of the above and other infrastructure deficiencies. Through the UNCHS programme survey, these have been identified and quantified under eight main heads which are as given below:

Infrastructure Deficiencies in Slum Households

(Figures in brackets are percentages having access to the facility)

Housing and Health

The survey also identified the housing condition of the slum families under three categories according to type of building material used - temporary (kutcha), semi-permanent and permanent. The classification is as follows:

Regarding health services, the MCV has set up 12 municipal dispensaries, 9 maternity and child welfare centres. These are manned in the slums by honorary doctors who attend to patients on a regular basis.