Problem Addressed
Despite continued efforts by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to improve water and sanitation in key focus areas (slum and slum-like), there are challenges to streamline operational and management systems and for water-sanitation services. There are also inadequate efforts to change behaviour of the urban poor towards demanding and sustaining use of safe water-sanitation services.
Despite AMC’s efforts to improve sanitation in slum areas, many slum dwellers are unable to benefit from the improvements, the key reasons being, absence of micro-level planning to identify and improve sanitation infrastructure in vulnerable areas; administrative and procedural issues in accessing clean water and sanitation facilities such as exhaustive paper work; poor operation and maintenance of water and sanitation facilities and inadequate behaviour change activities to support the infrastructure improvements; financing alternatives; and innovative technological solutions.
Even with the initiation of WASH activities in municipal schools of Ahmedabad, due to lack of complementing infrastructure in the municipal schools and the living neighbourhoods around the schools, the targeted impact of WASH has not been fully achieved.
India has a high exposure to health risks on account of its poor sanitation infrastructure.The government struggles to provide basic hygiene and sanitation services effectively, because it has poor data about the needs and habits of the residents and very little information on the existing infrastructure (plumbing, sewage lines, etc.). There is also a need for behaviour change among communities to make them understand the health problems caused by open defecation.