In the last decade, Bangladesh has witnessed many industrial disasters including factory fires, the most recent being the collapse of various garment factories housed in a multi-storeyed building named Rana Plaza on April 24, 2013. The collapse killed over 400 workers, with 2500 people injured and missing. A large majority of the workers who perished were poor and earning as little as US$ 37 a month. The Garment industry accounts for 17% of the country’s GDP and garment exports have increased considerably with less than US$ 1 billion in the 1985 to nearly US$ 20 billion in 2012 making Bangladesh the world’s second largest apparel producer after China. Bangladesh currently has more than 5400 garment factories  that work for large western retailers, with those from Europe accounting for nearly 60% of the country’s apparel exports followed by the United States at 23% of exports. In order to attract foreign investments, the Government of Bangladesh set up special economic zones in Dhaka and surrounding cities, boosting the number of factories in the country.  The garment industry, especially the factories focused on exports have been less careful about adopting adequate safety measures, primarily due to the focus on cost reduction to ensure lucrative exports.

One of the key drivers to the growth of the industry has been the availability of informal and low cost labor in Bangladesh. The garment industry employs more than 4.5 million people of which about 85% are women. The workers include migrants from within and outside Bangladesh, who live in absolute poverty in the slums of the capital city.  Working in hazardous environments, garment factory workers work up to 18 hours a day to earn less than US$ 2.

After a series of protests in 2010, the national minimum wage in Bangladesh was increased from 1,662 taka (US$ 21.32) to 3000 taka (US$ 38.49) – up by 80%. Despite this increase, the minimum monthly wage of a garment factory worker is lower than the minimum monthly cost of living in Bangladesh, calculated by the National Garments Workers’ Federation, which is approximately 5000 taka (US$64.15). These wages are much lower than those in China where the minimum wage for garment workers ranges from US$ 154 to US$230; and Cambodia where the monthly minimum is US$ 80; making Bangladesh the hub for low cost garment manufacture.

Lack of Safety

Dhaka is the world’s most densely populated cities, with 115,000 inhabitants per square mile and land is scarce and expensive resource. Given the scarcity of land, multi-storey buildings that violate building codes are a common occurrence. Many of these buildings are residential apartment blocks for families converted into factories, and are inadequate in terms of fire escapes, proper ventilation and sanitation, for the increased number of people they now have to cater to. Adding illegal floors to buildings is also a common practice. Needless to say, these floors are added in violation of structural concerns and fire and other safety measures.

Many factories are often run out of a single building, with multiple tenants on different floors. Apart from limited regular and emergency exits, high density of people, and lack of safety measures, the lack of coordination between tenants of these buildings pose greater risks as compared to small factories with single tenants. Additionally, these buildings house power generators to help the factories cope with frequent power cuts. In the recent incident at Rana Plaza, according to the initial government enquiry, there were five large generators in the building which were fully functional right before the collapse. These generators were running due to a power cut and may have been instrumental in the collapse of the building.  These poorly constructed buildings cannot take the heavy load that these generators create. Over 600 workers in the last five months have been killed in Bangladesh due to similar working conditions.

Labour Behind the Label is an international campaign funded by the European union, striving towards improving working conditions and empowering workers in the global garment industry. In an interview with BBC after the incident, Sam Mehers, Policy Coordinator from the campaign suggested that “Many of these buildings are a death trap, often with no proper escape routes. So while this incident is shocking it is not surprising”.

Reactions from Global Customers

These recent events in Bangladesh have been distressing for several international brands whose clothes were found at the disaster sites. These global companies often commit to a tightly scrutinized system and assure buyers that the clothes sold are produced in safe conditions. However, in spite of ground level checks, these companies often have very little control over how the subcontractors run the factories. In December 2012, the fire in Tarzeen Fashions, a garment factory killed 112 people. Boxes of sweatshirts with Disney characters bound for Wal-Mart stores were found in the rubble. It, however, came to light that the work was subcontracted to Tarzeen Fashions without authorization from Wal-Mart or Disney.

Similarly, the Rana Plaza building collapse brought the spotlight on a few western brands. Of these, two western retailers, Britain’s Primark and Canada’s Loblaw have pledged compensation to the families of the garment workers who were killed while making their clothes in Rana Plaza. It is not clear though whether this settlement will reach the victims’ families soon, considering that it is now four months after the Tarzeen factory fire, the victims are still waiting for their compensation from the retailers, who have not responded to the call of compensation.  In the meanwhile, The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters association and the Bangladeshi government have begun to pay compensation to the workers.

In order to avoid such accidents and promote better safety conditions for workers, Labour behind the Label is part of a campaign, started by the International Labour Rights Forum, advocating that retailers sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreements. This agreement looks at action work which includes independent building inspections, training in workers’ rights and reviewing safety standards of the factories regularly. Only some companies like Germany’s Tchibo and United States’ PVH Corp (makers of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger) have signed these agreements. Some companies like Sears Holdings Corp., are re-examining the dangers of factories run by multiple owners or at multi-level locations and buildings.

These developments have also resulted in some companies deciding to move on from Bangladesh or reduce the number of factories they subcontract to in the country. Walt Disney Co., the world’s largest licenser withdrew from Bangladesh in March 2013 as a part of a larger movement out of countries with higher worker safety risks such as Pakistan and Venezuela. Along with Walt Disney Co., Wal-Mart and Levi Strauss & Co. have backed away from factory buildings housing multiple tenants. Target Corp. and Nike Inc., are also reducing the number of factories they use in Bangladesh. The on-going civil and political unrest in Bangladesh has caused losses of up to $25.7 million daily and a 40% drop in foreign orders for the garment industry. With global firms exiting the market, Bangladesh faces a larger threat which could affect the economy and the livelihoods of the millions who make a living out working at these factories.

Interventions for Improvement

The National Garment Workers’ Federation (NGWF) established in 1984, has been fighting for the rights of garment workers and successfully managed to increase their wages in 2010. They are also working towards strengthening the trade union movement and organizing workers in order to promote workers’ rights and safety. Adding to the above, there are various international activist groups like Labour behind the label and War on Want that are working towards ensuring better employment conditions, safety and rights to workers’ at these garment factories. Following the Tazreen Fashion factory fire, UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative has been working with member companies, trade unions and NGOs to build an alliance that addresses fire and building safety in the garment sector. The alliance details will be released on May 15, 2013 with active involvement of the International Labour Organization and IndustiALL.

In the meanwhile, there have been different responses from Global retailers. The question of the ultimate responsibility of workers’ safety – whether it should rest with the government, the local manufacturers, the global brands or the global consumers – still remains a conundrum.

These disasters highlight the needs for stricter implementation of the law. Additionally, stronger urban search and rescue measures would help avoid higher death tolls in the event of future natural and manmade disasters. Stronger monitoring of suppliers by global companies – although difficult to implement – would help Bangladesh’s garment industry more than an exodus of large contracts and orders that provide income and employment to thousands of families. These exists are certain to have adverse effects on the workers’ families, pushing them further into poverty.

Conclusion

South Asian countries, especially Bangladesh and Pakistan have been victims of illegal subcontracting, low value associated with human life and industrial disasters, resulting in many deaths. Bangladesh has ratified various International Labour Organization Conventions such as C001 Hours of Work Convention, C182 Worst forms of Child labour Convention, with many Occupational Safety and Health conventions still pending. However, the recent incidents have brought to light the lack of implementation of these conventions.

According to reports, two babies were born under the debris as their pregnant mothers were trapped under the ruins. While they were rescued with their mothers, and the possibility of expectant mothers delivering sooner out of shock is high, it still certainly brings to light the gravity of the situation. However, the need to strengthen urban search and rescue measures is extremely important. Bangladesh lacks specialized equipment like micro-cameras which can go under the rubble to search for survivors or scanners that can detect human heat. Basic equipment like flash lights also seemed to be missing. At the disaster spot, it was witnessed that some of the rescuers who were weren’t wearing helmets or gloves were asking the public surrounded to flash lights.   Along with the notable gap in equipment, the rescuers need to be trained thoroughly and there needs to be better coordination amongst members of the rescue operations.

The Bangladesh garment industry mishaps are a wakeup call to global citizens, governments and companies for taking sustainable measures to address the lack of safety in the garment factories. For the millions of workers who craft apparel in these factories, their daily trek to work in the quest for survival is a toss-up between life and livelihood.

Sources

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/29/inside-bangladesh-garment-factories

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22382329

http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/urgent-actions/item/1134-bangladeshi-factory-fire-families-of-victims-continue-to-wait

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/bangladesh-garment-blame-retailers_n_3204245.html

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http://m.irinnews.org/Report/97945/Lessons-from-Bangladesh-garment-factory-collapse

http://qz.com/77717/political-unrest-is-killing-bangladeshs-low-cost-manufacturing-appeal/

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/08/meet-dhaka-worlds-densest-city/2923/

In the context of rapid South Asian urbanization, climate change and poverty are increasingly demonstrating a close causal affiliation. Asian cities are estimated to contribute around 80% of the region’s GDP drawing more people to them in search of livelihoods. The Asian Development Bank reports that by 2050, 52.4% of South Asians are expected to live in cities. The absolute number of people living in South Asian cities is projected to be among the highest in Asia, growing from about 549 million people in 2010 to 875 million in 2030. This constitutes 38% of the expected increase in the urban population in Asia and 23% of the expected urban population increase in the world in the next 20 years While estimates on the proportion of the urban poor in these cities are absent, they appear to be high, given that almost 190.7 million people, or 35% of those living in South Asian cities, inhabit slums.

Slums and other marginal areas in cities tend to be highly exposed to climate-related risks, and urban services such as water and food supplies, sanitation and electricity come under increasing strain due to floods, droughts, heat waves and rising sea-levels. Governments in the region have been concerned about the adverse impacts of climate change, and are seeking ways to address them. Recently, the governments in Pakistan and Nepal initiated policies around climate change in a bid to accelerate efforts to mitigate adverse climate impact.

Climate Change and South Asia

In the last decade, poor communities South Asia have had to pay immense costs due to their exposure to climate change related disasters. According to the Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan, ranked amongst the ‘most affected countries in 2011’, showed an average weighted ranking in the index at a high 10.50%. Bangladesh fared five times worse at 50.83% and Nepal at 38%. Bangladesh, however recorded a lower loss per unit of GDP ratio at 0.01% compared to Pakistan and Nepal, for which the figures stood at 1.19% and 0.03%, respectively. The loss of lives in Pakistan was the highest in 2011 (due to the massive floods that ravaged the Sindh region that year), with the death toll standing at 500; Nepal lost 191 lives in 2011 while that for Bangladesh stood at 160. The report adds that in the decade from 2000 to 2010, climate change caused Pakistan to experience the worst floods in its history and see a cumulative death toll of as many as 3000 people. It is estimated that nearly 20 million Pakistanis were displaced by the 2010 floods, and continue to bear the socio-economic costs of climate change exposure. Even as 600 million Pakistanis were stranded without homes, the region was concomitantly hit by a food security crisis. With harvests being destroyed as well as transport and warehousing facilities impacted, the price of essentials such as rice, flour, fruit and vegetables surged. The most impacted by these developments were the urban poor that represented 9 million people, or as much as one fifth of the country’s total population.

Nepal too, has experienced the negative impacts of climate change and rising global temperatures. The report states that in 2011, the Himalayan nation lost 282 lives to glacial floods. The 4^th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that serious and recurrent floods hit the region from 2002 to 2004, and that a decrease in precipitation in the region has caused acute water shortage. The country also faces a challenge in domestic electrification. The World Energy Outlook’s Energy Development Index, which measures household electricity provision, ranked Nepal near the bottom of countries evaluated in 2012. With grid extension to the country’s hilly and mountainous areas being prohibitively expensive, renewable, off-grid energy solutions are the only realistic way to provide energy in the most remotely accessed parts of the country. The Nepalese leadership too has demonstrated a strong inclination towards promoting the use and access of renewable energy technologies (RETs). The Rural Energy Development Program, run between 2009 and 2011 in the country, is a case in point. The program connected over 50,000 households to micro hydropower installations, installed around 15,000 improved cooking stoves and 3,200 solar home heating systems.

Recent Policy Initiatives in the Region

With rapid urbanization, cities in the region already struggle to provide for its poorest communities in terms of living spaces, food and other essential amenities. Disasters further exacerbate these conditions. Climate related risks, though are not easily identifiable to a pointed source. Policies aimed towards addressing the problems therefore face the challenge of design precision – they must address all the closely knit multifarious factors.

In February 2013, the Governments in Pakistan and Nepal initiated policies to address challenges posed by climate change. The Pakistan Tribune reported the drafting of the country’s first ever climate change policy, developed in partnership with the United Nations Development Program. Around the same time, the government of Nepal endorsed the extension of the Renewable Energy Grants Policy, which provides a 40% subsidy to rural households that chose to install renewable energy technologies, to urban centres in the country. While Pakistan’s policy is more overarching and indicative with 120 interventions to slow down the impact of global warming, Nepal’s policy is more specific in promoting use of renewable energy. Both, however, face questions regarding implementation and time-frames.

Pakistan’s Climate Change Policy enlists five measures that could be taken to address ‘the problems of poor communities in Pakistan’s urban areas in the context for climate change’.The five measures include: a) integrate the poverty-climate nexus into economic policies and plans; b) Ensure the implementation and expansion of national population planning strategies and programs, as the population explosion is likely to significantly exacerbate the impact of climate change; c) Enhance general awareness of the problems of unchecked population growth and the demands it places on natural resources; d) Strengthen community level climate change adaptation measures to prepare communities for enhanced and efficient natural resources management;  and e) Ensure that the development process is sustainable and caters to the needs of the poor.

Nepal’s February 2013 policy is more focused on energy security. It extends the government’ existing rural subsidy awarded to households that used renewable energy technologies to urban areas as well. The new policy funds technologies sourced from hydropower, solar, biogas (a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide produced by fermenting organic matter) and – for the first time – wind. The policy also seeks to use biomass, a traditional energy source, more efficiently. According to reports, under the policy, the Nepalese government will bear 40% of the total installation costs, an additional 40% of the cost would be made available through non-collateralized loans awarded by banks and financial institutions. The consumer would only have to bear the remaining 20% of the cost. The absolute cost of renewable energy however will determine its affordability to the urban poor.

The impact of these policies on the urban poor populations remains unclear. Pakistan’s draft policy does not clearly outline climate adaptation strategies that the urban poor could adopt.  The recommendations are also silent on details such as budgeting, timelines for roll out-out, and implementation mechanisms.  While the introduction of the policy is laudable, there are some immediate questions to identify specificfocus areas for interventions.  Given that Pakistan is the most urbanized country in South Asia, climate policy will have to place bolstering the capacity of the urban poor to deal with climate change at a priority.

Nepal’s policy evoked similar reactions. Although Nepal’s policy is more specific, experts say that there is an additional need for legislation to further reinforce and regularize RET usage, guarantee financing and also create institutional mechanisms to sell surplus energy to the national grid. Capacity development, consumer awareness drives and streamlined quality management services are also pivotal logistical concerns imperative to the success of the policy.

Conclusion

South Asia currently finds itself strategically placed at the very centre of a transforming global climate change dialogue. With nearly half of the worlds’ top 20 mega-cities — those with populations of 10 million or more in the region, these countries have the potential to be the pioneers in adoption of climate change solutions. The most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are the urban poor– a sizeable number, who occupy marginal areas exposed to climate and environmental hazards.  In the face of ever increasing risks through climate-caused disasters, city plans need to be climate proof and protect their most vulnerable sections, and bolster their capacities to adapt.

Undoubtedly, the governments of Pakistan and Nepal have begun to take concerted action towards mitigating the impacts of climate change.  Significantly, both countries have a plethora of successfully run small scale projects that locally address climate adaptation issues at the community level.  The leadership would do well to capitalize on the technological and knowledge innovations produced in their countries and ensure the achievement of a sustained beneficial impact by reforming the larger institutional systems of governance responsible for their implementation.

Sources:

http://germanwatch.org/fr/download/7170.pdf

http://www.mocc.gov.pk/gop/index.php?q=aHR0cDovLzE5Mi4xNjguNzAuMTM2L21vY2xjL3VzZXJmaWxlczEvZmlsZS9Nb2NsYy9Qb2xpY3kvTmF0aW9uYWwlMjBDbGltYXRlJTIwQ2hhbmdlJTIwUG9saWN5JTIwb2YlMjBQYWtpc3RhbiUyMCgyKS5wZGY%3D

http://pubs.iied.org/10615IIED.html?s=EUB

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http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/03/02/pakistan-national-climate-change-policy-idINDEE92101S20130302

http://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/abt/intwep/zingel/kaiser96.htm

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/environmentandenergy/successstories/nepal–expanding-access-to-renewable-energy/

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=intl

Policy initiatives to promote universal education amongst India’s youth population have led to significant improvement in school enrolment statistics of the country. Almost six and a half decades post-independence, India hosts one of the largest school systems in the world, with over 195,000 secondary and higher secondary schools. The Right to Education (RTE) Act of 2009 further aided enrolment and access to education for all children. The number of children in the age-group of 6-15 years OR attending secondary schools has seen a dramatic rise; the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for secondary school education has increased from 43% in 2000 to 63% in 2010. Around 98% of the school children can now access a primary educational institution within 1 kilometer of their homes, while 92% have access to a secondary educational institution within 3 kilometers of their homes. On a country wide level, today, 180 million children are enrolled in more than 1.2 million schools, and are taught by over 5.7 million teachers.

In urban areas, there are over 0.2 million schools accessed by 40 million students who are taught by 1.5 million teachers. The growth of 24.5% in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in urban areas is also a positive indicator of improved access to education among the urban youths in the country. However, amidst encouraging signs of greater education proliferation, the quality of education provided in these mushrooming schooling institutions has come into question.

Sub-par educational outcomes

Although the rising GER and schools statistics are in tandem with the basic RTE requirements, a deeper investigation into the quality of education delivery indicates some significant gaps. In terms of infrastructure, only 64% of the urban schools have pucca buildings (structures that are more permanent and are made out of concrete) and majority of the schools consist of merely 4-6 classrooms. Additionally, schools face a dearth of resources – 58% of the schools have libraries and 47% have access to computers. Paucity of human resources also poses a major problem; a paltry 53% of the schools have a regular headmaster, while about 50% of the schools are managed by less than five teachers.

Teacher quality is another challenge. Of the 1.5 million teachers in urban areas, only 20% have received in-service training and 30% haven’t received a college education. Out of a total 322 school working days, teachers in urban areas devote on an average, 6 days to extra-curricular activities. The lack of education or training qualifications, compounded with a dearth of other developmental activities has created ‘physical and emotional barriers in education’.

A number of studies have underlined the persistence of teacher biases, unappealing schooling facilities, and lack of community support and absent channels of communication as major reasons for the underdevelopment of youths in Indian schooling institutions. This problem is likely to affect the urban poor too, who attend schools that are not conducive for holistic development. A study conducted by Ashish Singh in 2010 found that, lack of opportunities for urban poor youth due to family backgrounds can account for up to 17% of the total inequality of wages in adult life Studies have also shown that adolescents from urban poor families often face self-esteem challenges, have trouble controlling and channelling their emotions, have low aspirations and are not informed enough to plan for the future. Educational infrastructure, as it stands today, seems ill equipped to address these attitudinal and emotional problems faced by the adolescent urban poor.

The Positive Youth Development Model

The Positive Youth Development (PYD) paradigm propounded by Reed Larson in 2006, asserts that young people possess a ‘built-in motivational system that has enormous potential to engage youth in positive development’. However, more often than not, challenges of daily life act as obstacles that can ‘keep the motivational system turned off’ – either temporarily (in case of minor, transient problems) or permanently (in case of extreme conditions of economic poverty and social deprivation). In such cases, interventions in the form of family support, extra-curricular activities or a mentoring relationship becomes extremely important to ensure that these adolescents communicate their distress and overcome their obstacles. A March 2013 J-PAL Youth Initiative Review paper posits the long held notion that non-cognitive skills can be just as significant as cognitive skills in determining how well young people ‘are able to navigate the transition from childhood to adulthood’.

Since families and schools do not provide any additional support to these adolescents, and ‘natural’ mentors are hard to come by in urban poor communities, mentoring by young adult professionals can prove to be an effective intervention system. Adult professionals with steady, thriving careers, and committed to play the role of a patient guide to poor youths form an important crux of the mentoring system. With additional training on subjects related to cognitive and non-cognitive development, they become a significant part of youths’ development. The localized administration of these programs makes it easier for administrating NGOs to identify the youth pockets in need, and recruit the ‘right’ mentors. Additionally, it also ensures that the mentoring program can be delivered effectively and improved over time.

Mentors, in consultation with the NGOs, can form their own localized version of the PYD model and ensure that school going adolescents stay sufficiently motivated to learn and grow holistically. Mentors are also capable of addressing issues that parents or teachers cannot, for adolescents will not view them as authority figures. Acting as friendly guides, mentors can communicate transparently with their mentees and provide strong moral support in times of distress. Mentors also have the additional advantage of having access to various social networks, which can prove to be extremely helpful while nurturing youth talent and aspirations.

Mentortogether: Mentoring urban poor in the Indian context

In the Indian urban context especially, mentoring can fill the void in holistic education for adolescents from marginalized and often unsafe communities. Mentortogether stands out as one example of an existing mentor-mentee organization that has already begun to make an impact in this regard. A registered not-for-profit organization based in Bangalore, Karnataka, Mentortogether envisions nurturing fruitful, democratic relationships between disadvantaged urban youth and working professionals. It aims to empower the at-risk youth population by honing their non-cognitive skills and provide them with access to social networks and thereby, opportunities that they would not otherwise be aware of. Arundhuti Gupta, CEO  & Founder, Mentortogether, believes that mentors can boost their mentees’ self-confidence (through language skills and improved awareness) and could also connect them to future or current employers and educational institutions, which would allow the mentees to pursue their career goals.

Mentortogether’s model is based primarily on the PYD paradigm and follows a one-on-one mentoring process. In its pilot mentoring program, 20 girls in the age group of 14-18 years from a government home (a shelter run by the State Department, for girls at risk and in need of care) in Mysore, Karnataka were paired with female mentors from different fields and professions. The mentees were selected based on a needs assessment exercise, while the mentors were put through a rigorous interview and training process before the start of the mentoring program. The training workshop provided the mentors with useful tools to address possible issues faced by their mentees and establish a transparent channel of communication. Thereafter, the mentors and mentees met twice every month, for 60-90 minutes to conduct structured face-to-face sessions often in the presence of organizers from Mentortogether; mentees could also contact mentors via online platforms such as emails using computers. Additionally, workshops focusing on life skills and English language communication were held for the benefit of mentees. Progress and feedback were constantly documented by Mentortogether in an effort to keep track of the program and to decipher various developmental outcomes. The program was designed to be a year-long ‘formal’ mentoring relationship, which could then devolve into non-formal relationships.

The formal mentoring program led to a number of encouraging developments among the girls. The evaluation conducted during and at the end of the mentoring program (in the form of questionnaires, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews) showed that the mentees felt more confident while facing various family and community pressures. In many instances, mentees reported that they were able to form practical, realistic goals for the future and start working towards it. Over the course of the relationship, mentees felt safe sharing some of their deepest concerns and fears with their mentors, and were successfully able to address them. For the mentees, their mentors took on the roles of a friend, role model and guide as the situation demanded – it allowed the girls to genuinely participate democratically in the mentoring process. A significant cognitive development was observed in the English language aptitude; something that a number of girls felt uneasy with before the mentoring program. With some guidance from their mentors, they were able to overcome this barrier and felt that their new-found comfort with English language significantly improved their career and educational prospects.

Other mentoring programs in the country such as ‘Mentor Me India’ and ‘Dream and Dream’ too have embarked upon similar mentoring projects. In large metropolises particularly, various social and professional networks are easily available and the youth display greater levels of awareness. In such cases, says, Arundhuti, “Mentors are required to act more like facilitators and less as instructors. Young people in metropolises aspire for white collar jobs and the focus is to create a match based on mutual professional interest.” At the end of the program, she adds, mentees reported having concrete plans for their future, and credited their mentors for providing them with useful inputs which ensured that their motivation levels could be sustained through various obstacles.

Mentoring: A sustainable intervention for the urban poor?

Given the state of India’s current education system, mentoring seems to present very significant advantages for its youth population. Mentors bridge an important developmental gap faced by urban poor adolescents and facilitate their upward mobility. However, in the Indian context, mentoring also faces some very real roadblocks. The urban poor often hesitate to open up, or engage in transparent communication with their mentors. Further, at the end of a formal mentoring relationship, reports Arundhuti, mentees do not seem to be comfortable reaching out to their mentors; any initiative for a meeting or an activity is often undertaken by the mentor. The adolescents’ passivity also makes it difficult to determine if the various skills (especially non-cognitive skills) imparted and developed upon during the formal mentoring relationship has been truly understood and absorbed. Mentortogether evaluations also suggest that mentees, sometimes, perceive mentoring relationships as an extension of classroom activity and feel that they need to ‘learn’ about ‘decision making and assertiveness.’ One of the challenges facing evaluations in such contexts according to Arundhuti, is gauging whether the mentees are ‘learning to exercise their own independent thought and rational judgment or simply agreeing with whatever is being taught.’

Despite these disadvantages, mentoring constitutes a promising intervention. Potentially, unlike pure livelihood intervention models that provide specific skill training and placement to unemployed youth, holistic youth development models ensure that the urban poor are given access to resources that can amount to significant future gains, and hone their life skills. It seeks to ensure that the urban poor do not remain deprived and have sources for further development and progress. In a highly unequal society such as India, channels that promote equality of opportunity – especially among disadvantaged youth – form a significant indicator of future growth. Although there are numerous challenges of implementing a sustainable mentoring program – such as finding suitable partner organizations, gaining adequate funding, conducting fool-proof evaluations, organizations such as Mentortogether, that focus on scientifically informed mentoring programs, have started laying the building blocks of holistic youth development eco-system for India.

Sources:

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-12-11/news/35749001_1_students-or-slow-learners-school-principals-student-participation

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Gupta, Arundhuti, and Gowda, Rajeev, M.V. 2012. “Mentoring India’s Youth.” IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, SAGE Publications. 2(2): 75-84.

Increase in consumerism, rapid urbanization and greater population densities have resulted in high proportions of waste being generated in Asian cities. Dhaka alone generates about 5800 tons per day of waste. Bangalore, which generates 3500 tons of waste per day, hosts close to 10 million citizens – more than double the population that it had about eight years back. While population and therefore, waste generation, has increased, there has been no change in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, or the Bangalore Municipal Corporation’s (BBMP) strategy for waste management.

The city follows a centralized waste management model, which essentially involves a single agency collecting and transporting waste to a designated landfill. “There is neither institutional arrangement nor legal provisions to enforce segregation across all waste generators. And the tenders for waste, which have not been renewed for five years, purely focus on collection and transportation and do not incentivize segregation. There needs to be a concerted effort across the value chain to ensure segregation. Otherwise, all the waste will continue to be dumped in landfills at Mandur and Mavelipura” says Rathish Balakrishnan, Director of Sattva. In the centralized model of waste management, slum and other low income areas invariably get ignored.

Most waste in urban India moves to landfills, and when one location is filled to capacity, a new landfill site is identified to repeat the process. Experts, however, feel that the ‘landfill’ based approach is not sustainable in the long run, particularly since soaring land prices in cities ensure that new landfills are further away from the older ones.

Bangalore had its own share of problem with landfills. During August 2012, the city’s landfill at Mandur stopped receiving 3500 tons per day of waste due to public interest litigation (PIL) in court against it by Environment Support Group (ESG) and other residents. As a result, the city spilled over with waste. There was no dumping area available and vehicles carrying waste were grounded. Bangalore was re-christened as India’s “garbage” city – a definite drop from its position as the country’s “garden” city. The court eventually came up with clear directions for managing waste in the city. It has made segregation of waste mandatory at source and directed setting up of a minimum of three Segregation and Wet Waste Processing Stations in each of its 198 wards (division within city). The court also emphasized the importance of decentralized waste management and announced, “We think that decentralization in the system of solid waste management would lend efficacy and prevent bottlenecks impacting the entire city at a given point of time.”

Decentralized Solutions for Waste Management

The zero waste generation model is being seen by experts as a sustainable long term solution. This model will remove the need for landfills, which are at best seen as temporary solution and also save on transportation cost. Post the Bangalore crisis, a citizen’s initiative called Wake up Clean up (WUCU) was set up, led by a citizen, Kalpana Kar. “Designed as a 7-day event, WUCU brought various stakeholders together demonstrating the willingness of civil society in partnership with Government and industry to collaborate to put together systems and processes that will deliver a clean city”, says Kalpana Kar. It is seen as a step towards finding a sustainable and scalable solution for the waste situation, not only for Bangalore but also other cities in India. Decentralized infrastructure for waste management at a ward level – having facilities for segregation of waste and composting facility for treating organic waste, is one of the solutions suggested by WUCU.

Decentralized waste management systems help in providing focused waste collection and recycling services to low income areas, particularly slum communities. They also employ people from same community like informal recyclers and waste pickers, many of them being migrants from rural areas, thus helping in improving their livelihoods. Although this community plays an important role in the waste management chain, their efforts are seldom recognized by the other stakeholders. Importantly, the decentralized approach could help in changing the mindset of people towards waste management, and engender a move away from the “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) mindset to embrace a more responsible and sustainable solution of waste management.

Although there is in-theory acceptance of the efficacy of the decentralized model, most households in India still hesitate to treat waste in their backyards.  In the urban poor communities, the situation is worse, as slums are illegal and given the density of population, difficult to navigate for waste collection agents. Further, these communities are not perceived as being able or willing to pay for the services. Despite these challenges to their adoption, various organizations have not only come up with innovative solutions to waste management but also helped communities to earn incomes, get recognition for the role they play in managing the city’s waste and obtain basic rights and entitlements.  Interestingly, several of these programs seek to create value from the waste, adding to the model’s sustainability.

“Trash to Treasure” in Bangalore, India

CHF International, a not-for-profit organization partnered with Centre for Social Action (CSA) of Christ University, Bangalore and the Caterpillar Foundation to launch the “Trash to Treasure” program in 2008. It established a recycling center run by women to provide waste collection service to 1,300 slum households and 1,500 low income non-slum households in Rajendra Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar, Bangalore. This initiative not only introduced a valuable service that the slum community did not previously have, but also offered a livelihood program for some community members.

Ms K. Latha, Program officer, CHF says, “we faced initial challenges – to begin with, all houses had to be mapped in the area as there was no data given that the local municipal body (BBMP) had not included this area under its regular waste management program.” Another challenge pertained to the collection of a monthly fee for the service INR 10 – 15 (US$ 0.18 – 0.27) per household. The popular belief was that the local government should collect garbage free of cost. Despite this, CHF managed a conversion of 70% of residents who agreed to pay the monthly fee. The others chose to simply throw the garbage in a nearby drain.

Their waste management model was simple. CHF employed about 8 women waste pickers to collect waste door-to-door from 2800 households in Rajendra Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar. The waste was segregated at source and brought to the waste management facility. The recyclable waste was sold to various recyclers and the wet waste was taken for composting. CHF says that white paper fetched INR 11/Kg (US$ 0.2), Metal Cans and PET Bottles fetched a higher price – INR 70/Kg (US$ 1.27) and INR 26.50 (US$ 0.48) respectively. Organic waste of about 1000 kg of food waste per month was composted, yielding about 300 kgs of compost (after 3-4 weeks of composting). This earned CHF INR 900 (US$ 16) per month. The waste pickers earned over INR 110 per day (US$ 2), enjoyed better working conditions and a life of dignity.

The model’s simplicity made it successful. BBMP now included Rajendra Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar in their tender for waste collection. CHF then decided to hand over the treatment center to a local entrepreneur from within the community. This center is yet to break even with income of INR 35,000 per month (US$ 630) from sale of recyclables and expenditure of INR 56,500 per month (US$ 1,025). The entrepreneur has now extended the services to nearby apartments and higher income areas as well, in a bid to ensure that the venture becomes self-sustainable. BBMP decided to open four more centres collaborating with NGOs during 2011 and now wants similar centers in all 198 wards.

“Waste to Wealth” – The Vellore temple project, India

Vellore is a small city about 150 kms from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It is home to the Golden Temple, popularly known as ”Narayani Peedam”, located in a 100 acre campus. The temple attracts around 5000 tourists daily, who generate about 2 tons of waste per day. Faced with waste management challenges, the temple authorities adopted a comprehensive decentralized solid waste management plan.

Exnora International is an NGO focusing on environmental services. Dr. MB Nirmal, Founder of Exnora says, “The Golden Temple of Vellore is one of the best models for green and environmentally friendly campuses, and can be followed in other cities as well.”

All recyclable waste is collected daily by women workers called “Temple Beautifiers”, and brought to a Waste Processing Facility (WPF) within the temple campus. This facility employs about 150 workers, most of them women. The recyclable waste is sorted, dried, processed and segregated (upto grade level) into 45 different varieties, before it is packed and sold. The effort of sorting and processing is significant – for instance the milk sachets are cleaned before packaging to eliminate odor, and PET bottles are crushed and shredded before packing. The bio-degradable waste is taken to composting centre to be converted into organic manure through vermin composting process. The temple earns about INR 100,000 (US$ 1,800) per month from the sale of recyclables and manure. The natural manure is used for enhancing the green cover in the campus, while segregated fruit and vegetable peel are also used for making cleaning power. The temple’s zero waste management model has become so popular that communities from neighboring areas have expressed an interest in replicating it in their locality.

“Cash for Trash” – The Dhaka Experience

Waste Concern, an NGO dealing specifically with solid waste management, was started by two young urban planners Iftekhar Enayetullah and Maqsood Sinha during mid-1990s. Dhaka generated 5800 tons per day of solid waste, 80% of which was organic waste suitable for composting – this translated to about 1200 truck-loads.

Waste Concern’s approach was to see waste as a resource rather than a problem. Their strategy was to establish a network of community-based composting plants, which would convert household organic waste into bio-fertilizer, and provide jobs for poor people, especially women.

Waste Concern started a pilot composting plant in Mirpur, Dhaka during 1995, including several slum and squatter settlements including one at Bashantek slum. Utilizing the existing network of waste pickers and simple technology, Waste Concern was able to demonstrate the benefits of a community-based approach. It paid residents about US$ 75 per ton of waste collected. Apart from earning money from waste, incidents of disease drastically reduced and living conditions in the slum improved. Prior to the project, the slum reported high prevalence of diarrhea and cholera, particularly during the summer.

The success of the Mirpur pilot project convinced all stakeholders that the model was workable. In 1998, with support from UNDP, Waste Concern replicated this model in four other poor communities around Dhaka. Today, Waste Concern is treating nearly 200 tons of garbage a day at six different locations in and around Dhaka.

Conclusion

The urban poor including slum dwellers and low income residents, informal recyclers, and waste pickers are a neglected lot, even in government programs. Waste is also not seen as income opportunity. Decentralized waste program brings in several advantages. Slums and low income areas can be covered more efficiently in decentralized programs.

A common theme emerging from the three examples of successful community-led waste management program is that waste should not be seen as a problem, but as a resource with the potential to earn money. This could be the one way to change the NIMBY mindset of people. The earning can also be shared among employees, who are typically people from bottom of pyramid.

Decentralized systems provide better working conditions and an identity to these workers. Some of them could also go on to become social entrepreneurs. This system also helps keep slums/low income areas clean and thereby reducing instance of disease. Replicating the decentralized model and scaling up these units to cover an entire city would go a long way to resolve the endemic waste challenges across various cities.

Sources

http://www.wakeupcleanup.com/index.html

http://www.caterpillar.com/sustainability/caterpillar-foundation

http://www.ashoka.org/files/Cash for Trash.pdf

http://www.wasteconcern.org/Publication/UK_Document _WC.pdf

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home.html

After a slew of scams and controversies for India’s ruling UPA (United Progressive Alliance) coalition, the newly unveiled 2013-2014 budget signals a return to the UPA’s primary agenda of economic growth. At various points in his speech, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram assured investors and voters that the UPA government was firmly committed to the “Indian Growth Story.”  Exclusive focus on education, skills development and employability underlined the government’s “mool mantra“ of “higher growth leading to inclusive and sustainable development.”

In particular, the new budget emphasizes the central government’s continued policy thrust towards skilling India’s burgeoning youth population to improve the country’s prospects. To this effect, it is allocating INR1,000 crores (~US$183.7m) to skills development and has directed the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to set uniform curricula and standards for various skills training. In addition, to further incentivize India’s youth to improve their skills, a lump sum of INR10,000(US$184.64) is guaranteed to any candidate who passes official tests upon completion of training.

Government funding is also being directed to the National Urban Livelihoods Mission to ensure support for the implementation of these skills initiatives. With these policies, the government is hoping to leverage India’s “demographic dividend,” thereby kick-starting a period of sustained growth and development.

The Economics of Growth and Development

Economic growth theories assert that the latent potential of abundant labor resources, as India has, can be harnessed through quality education and training systems. Armed with this “human capital” perspective of economic growth, India’s policymakers are embarking upon massive skills development initiatives across the country. India has a unique advantage of being one of the youngest countries worldwide for the next three decades. By 2020, most developed countries will be faced with a declining working age population, with average age in the late 40s. India, on the other hand, will be one of few countries where the average age will be only 29.

Historically, other countries with similarly growing young populations have been able to successfully capitalize on their youth populations through skills training programs and the ensuing higher productivity. Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Germany and the U.K. present some compelling case studies for developing countries in the 21^st century. Singapore and South Korea, in particular, faced similar challenges as India, in terms of high rates of urbanization and rising urban poverty levels. The subsequent economic growth and development experienced by these countries, however, has led to a deeply ingrained belief in India’s ability to successfully replicate their tried and tested policy practices.

Skills Development for Urban India

Although the skills development rhetoric has gained traction in India only over the recent decade, education-linked employability has been a long standing — albeit less prominent — theme in the Indian policy scenario. The first hint of policies created to tackle urban poverty dates back to the seventh Five-Year Plan (1985-1990), when development in urban areas was initiated through schemes focused on improving infrastructural amenities, environmental standards and livelihood promotion for the urban poor. Subsequent plans saw a steady increase in funding allocations for urban poverty alleviation with improved and more targeted schemes for achieving the various objectives of urban development.

The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana(SJSRY), launched in 1997, was the first prominent policy scheme to exclusively focus on providing gainful employment to the urban unemployed through self-employment or entrepreneurial ventures and other regular employment opportunities. The scheme’s focus on fostering entrepreneurship through training was – and still is – a model of progressive, innovative policy and did garner great support. However after the year 2000, with the advent of the IT revolution and the rise in demand for skilled workers, SJSRY failed to perform in northern and north-eastern Indian states, such as Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and the scheme was subsequently revised. The revision adopted a multipronged approach of tackling urban poverty through entrepreneurship, skills training programs and self-managed community structures. These initiatives targeted those urban residents living below the poverty line, as defined by the Planning Commission.

Despite its extensive coverage of employment avenues, the SJSRY scheme failed on multiple counts. On the financial front, relatively low levels of funding were made available for the scheme, thereby reducing its ability to reach and benefit the maximum number of urban poor people. As a result, only 250,000 of an estimated 81 million urban poor benefitted from this scheme annually – that is far less than 1% of those in need, a meager improvement in a looming, problematic context.

Furthermore, the SJSRY scheme suffered from a lack of coordination between government agencies, and an unavailability of expert trainers and staff on the field. More often than not, training centers could not be put to use on account of the lack of qualified trainers. The few centers that did manage to acquire trainers were not able to tailor courses to suit industry needs, nor were they effective in helping their candidates successfully transition from the classroom to the office. Employment exchanges, too, were not equipped to effectively coordinate between training institutions and companies, thereby nullifying the advantages offered by skills training programs.

National Urban Livelihoods Mission

Despite these glaring loopholes and failures, the SJSRY scheme did prove to be successful to a degree, in states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, where dedicated administrative structures were created to support the self-help group (SHG) movement, stimulate skills participation and improve employability amongst the urban poor. Of the 250,000 people served by the scheme annually, a majority of beneficiaries were located in these states. It can be argued that active participation by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local governing bodies enabled the urban poor in these states to gain access to employment and credit opportunities that would have been otherwise beyond their reach, and transformed their classroom lessons to employable skills.

Spurred by these success stories as much as by failures, the 12th Planning Commission recommended a “mission – mode” approach to urban development. This approach is based on three key areas: strengthening micro-enterprises and skills development initiatives for the urban poor; compulsory allocation of spaces within cities for the seamless integration between the private and working lives of the urban poor; and legislative action to ensure the guaranteed right of the urban poor to productive livelihoods. In 2012, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation adopted this three-pronged approach aimed at the integration of existing skills development schemes with social security and appropriate legislative provisions, and was called the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM).

The NULM has been touted as an initiative that would make state and city officials focus on tangible outcomes based on established stringent evaluation and monitoring procedures. It is set to be implemented in a phased manner over the next five years across various urban areas of India. The Mission is a departure from previous skills development schemes on account of the flexibility it provides to states to formulate their individual, tailored strategies for urban livelihoods based on their respective contexts. By taking note of important structural deficiencies in the implementation of SJSRY schemes, policymakers are optimistic about the NULM’s scope of success in effectively addressing rising urban poverty.

The Empirics of Skilling

The NULM along with the three-tier institutional structure of skills development (the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development, the National Skill Development Coordination Board and the NSDC) seem to be well-poised to administer the skills development objectives envisioned by the Prime Minister and may very well have a serious impact on urban poverty alleviation. However, the aim of training 500 million Indians over the next decade seems to be a lofty goal in the present context.

Eight hundred million people in India would be in the productive age group by 2015, as compared to China’s 600 million. The net addition to the formal Indian workforce is expected to be 89 million, of which 57 million would be school dropouts. On the other hand, a significant proportion of incremental industry demand is expected to be aimed at skilled labor – young people familiar and comfortable with technology, and possessing the ability to quickly adapt to changing knowledge and production standards. However, the present available training capacity is sufficient to train only about 3.1 million Indian youths annually.

In the urban context, empirics present a grim scenario. The share of the urban population has increased rapidly from 17.3% in 1951 to 31.16% in 2011. It is estimated that over 600 million Indians will be living in urban areas by 2030. In 2005, over 26% of the urban population were living on less than INR538.6 (~US$10) per month. In addition, 15% of the urban population is just at the poverty line. In spite of the relatively higher availability of training opportunities in urban areas, only 6% of urban youth have undergone any form of formal or vocational training. In the absence of education and formal training, a majority of the urban poor resort to working in the informal economy: 72-82% of men and 78-80% of women amongst the urban poor are reported to be either casually employed or informally self-employed.

Is Skilling Enough?

In the present context of urban India, are these skilling initiatives — though well-intentioned — enough to tackle the problem of urban poverty? The district-level, state-specific skills gap studies produced by the NSDC does provide state policy officials with pointers for skills training needs and could possibly produce some level of impact. However, the NULM and skills training programs at large need to evolve continuously to address the future demands of the changing job market. Although self-employment does combat urban poverty in the long run, reports by the Planning Commission note that a major concern is whether, the inadequacy of training or mentoring may result in poor proposals that are not properly developed. Without this crucial foundation, it would become next to impossible to get financial institutions to invest in these entrepreneurial ventures.

Likewise, skilling initiatives meant for the urban poor engaged in the informal economy need to focus on so-called upskilling rather than starting from scratch since individuals already employed would be unwilling, and likely unable, to forfeit current earned income to start afresh. Loss of income, even for a short period, can result in extreme poverty for those eking out a hand-to-mouth existence. Furthermore, reports suggest that most qualified trainers are concentrated in Tier-I cities, thereby leading to a deficit of trainers in vocational education institutions across India’s other urban areas. This dearth of trainers well-acquainted with teaching practices as well as industry standards is likely to impact the efficacy of skills development programs. Training the trainers, either through public-private partnerships (as proposed by the NSDC) or through exclusive teacher training programs, is critical to ensuring the success of skills development schemes.

Conclusion

Human capital is without a doubt a force behind economic growth; however, it alone is not enough to guarantee economic growth. Singapore and South Korea have successful track records because their respective skills development policies coordinated with improving Labor Market Information Systems (LMIS) and ensured adequate investment in capital and technology. Economic growth is possible only if human capital can complement other factors of production. The inability to align India’s labor markets, especially in vast, fast-paced urban areas, posits the key question: Why would the urban poor invest time or money in skills development if it does not support a sustainable livelihood?

In light of how much focus is being given to skills development within the scheme of poverty alleviation, it is important to examine what role skills training will play in the future of urban development. It will be important to ensure that skills training infrastructure over the next decade is built and developed in close coordination with local industries and private players. Additionally, as evidenced by the successes of SJSRY programs in certain states, dedicated community involvement will be crucial in warranting the successful dissemination of these programs across dispersed pockets of the urban poor.

Digital LMIS should be developed by state and local governments to strengthen the linkage between training programs and private companies. This will ensure that skills imparted in the classroom are being successfully absorbed in productive processes. State and local governments will also need to be pushed to carry out data collection and routine evaluations of on-the-ground skills training programs.

Skills programs need to be equipped with robust incubation centers to encourage innovation amongst those hoping to set up entrepreneurial ventures. The innovation funding, released by Chidambaram in the new budget, is a promising start in this direction. However, over the next few years, it is imperative that incubation centers learn and adapt to the needs and aspirations of the urban poor.

The employment-based, skills development schemes, if supported with these complementary measures, could possibly lead India to effectively reap its demographic dividend and emerge as a country that successfully implemented a pro-poor, human capital – centered growth in its cities.

Sources:

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2002-04-01/patna/27119533_1_urban-employment-programme-funds

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/218118/trainer-deficit-hindering-vocational-sectors.html

http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Use%20of%20Dise%20Data/Kaushik%20Ranjan%20Bandyopadhyay.pdf

http://forbesindia.com/blog/business-strategy/demograhic-dividend-or-burden/

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/union-budget-2013-14-full-text-of-chidambaram-budget-speech/1/252048.html

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4717

http://labour.nic.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/Policies/NationalSkillDevelopmentPolicyMar09.pdf

http://mhupa.gov.in/W_new/NULM-%20Draft%20Mission%20Document.pdf

http://nagaeval.nic.in/download%20publication/Pub51.pdf

http://newindianexpress.com/education/edex/article1465055.ece

http://planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/committee/wrkgrp12/hud/wg_Final_Urb_Pvt.pdf

http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/mta/11th_mta/chapterwise/chap9_employ.pdf.

http://rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Mode=0&Id=5313

http://www.skilldevelopment.gov.in/skill-landscape-in-india

http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/FICCI_skill_report_2012_finalversion/$FILE/FICCI_skill_report_2012_finalversion_low_resolution.pdf

The RGI report says that 68 million people, or one in six Indians, live in slum communities across 2,543 – out of a total of 4,041 – Indian towns. This amounts to 17.4% of the urban Indian population and is a dip from figures reported in the 2001 Census that estimated the number at 27.5% of the total urban population. While the figures imply a reduction in India’s total slum-dwelling population, closer scrutiny of the data suggests the report does not depict an entirely accurate picture.

Figures in Context

The Census makes a clear administrative distinction between what are termed “statutory” and “Census” towns. While statutory towns are those with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, Census towns are those that have a population of at least 5,000 individuals, with over 75% of the male workforce engaged in non-agricultural livelihood pursuits, and a minimum population density of 400 persons per square kilometer.

Since the 2001 Census, India has seen greater growth in the number of its Census towns than its statutory towns. The number of Census towns in India has grown by 186%, from 1,362 in 2001 to 3,894 in 2011. In the same period, the number of statutory towns increased from 3,799 in 2001 to 4,041 in 2011, representing a relatively meager growth of 6%.

The figures presented in the RGI report seem to suggest a decrease in India’s urban slum population. However, the figures used only include the much smaller proportion of statutory towns. In essence, the existence of slums in the growing number of Census towns — that currently represent 49% of all Indian towns — has been disregarded by the report. As bottlenecks build in the face of rural to urban migration, Census towns have actually become home to a rapidly growing number of slum communities. This reality needs to be captured in any report clarifying the situation of the urban poor in order to give policymakers a more accurate view of what is happening on-the-ground.

The RGI data has also attempted to indicate the general demographic and spatial spread of Indian slums. The report suggests that 71% of slum communities are located in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Three cities in Andhra Pradesh have populations greater than 10 million people and also claim a higher proportion of slum households. The southern city of Visakhapatnam has recorded the highest proportion of slum households to total urban households in India at 44.1%, two rankings higher than famously overcrowded Mumbai.

While the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh report the highest proportions of slum communities to total urban population — with the numbers standing at 35.7%, 32% and 28%, respectively — Kerala and Assam have much lower slum population proportions at only 1.5% and 4.8%, respectively. It is clear, however, that these numbers in themselves can only illustrate a partial portrait of the presence and distribution of slums across India, especially considering how a sizeable number of towns with slum populations have been left out of the RGI report’s scope.

Civic Amenities for the Urban Poor

The implied errors of data exclusion serve to paint a contrarian portrait with regard to the provision of civic amenities in Indian slums. According to the report, slums have coverage rates that are almost at-par with non-slum communities in cities, with no acknowledgement of the differences between slum households and non-slum households investigated and discussed in past research reports and media articles.

For example, the report’s figures show that more Indian slum households have tap water connections than non-slum households: 74% versus 70.6%, respectively. The report also cites that 10.4% of slum households own one desktop computer, 51.3% use LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) connections, 90.5% have electricity connections and 63.5% have mobile phone connections. While treated tap water sources are actually three percentage points greater for slum households, non-slum urban communities register only marginally higher percentages for mobile phone connections (64.3%), LPG connections (65%) and television connections (69.9%). And while only 36.9% of slum communities have closed drains, non-slum communities also have a low number of closed drainage systems at 45%.

These figures are misleading in a way that they suggest a more or less equal usage of specific amenities amongst all urban communities. It is important to note though how the RGI is categorizing communities as “legitimate” slums: requiring a minimum of 300 residents to a settlement, the relatively high number serves to exclude a large number of smaller or more temporary urban slum communities, which would further inflate the total slum population. What is particularly surprising is that the RGI retained this approach to slum identification in its first detailed slum census survey, despite criticism by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation of the methodology in a recent report.

A Note on Sanitation

One of the key insights from the RGI report could be the numbers it shares on the state of urban sanitation. While the evidence reported may not be robust, it is noteworthy considering that even as a conservative assessment, the results are bleak. The cost of poor sanitation to the country, according to a 2011 High Powered Expert Committee report entitled “Estimating the Investment Requirements for Urban Infrastructure Services” by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, is estimated at INR5,400 (~US$100) per person per year. Even among the larger and relatively more organized urban slum communities, as many as 34% of households do not have access to a toilet on or within their premises. Given how sanitation has become an important national agenda priority, urban policy in India must also prioritize the issue, particularly in light of how inadequate sanitation is affecting the health of the urban poor.

Ownership: Success of Urban Housing Policies?

The RGI report makes significant claims regarding urban housing. It states that the proportion of slum residents who own their homes is actually higher than that of non-slum residents, 70.2% versus 69.2%, respectively. Real life evidence across major Indian cities, however, does not corroborate with this finding. The ease with which slum evictions take place across the country indicate the oversight of any rights slum-dwellers may have to the land on which they reside. For example, earlier this year, as many as 1,200 families were forcibly evicted from their makeshift homes in the Ejipura slum in Bangalore, and the incident only served to underscore the extent to which the urban poor continue to face insecurity of tenure.

Without a doubt, urban housing is an area that requires immediate and concerted action. The draft 12^th Five-Year Plan notes, “As the urban population and incomes increase, demand for every key service such as water, transportation, sewage treatment, low income housing will increase five- to seven-fold in cities of every size and type. And if India continues on its current path, urban infrastructure will fall woefully short of what is necessary to sustain prosperous cities.” India’s widening housing and infrastructural gaps in cities are serious challenges that must be addressed. According to a recent McKinsey & Company study, “India’s urban awakening: Building inclusive cities, sustaining economic growth,” over US$1.2tn is needed for appropriate infrastructure investment in India — this without even addressing the housing gap. Still, even at its current rate of spending, the central government cannot meet many of the infrastructural needs in Indian cities.

The danger of the numbers reported by the RGI is that it grossly trivializes the issue of urban housing and infrastructure. With official projections themselves stating that for each of the next 25 years Indian cities shall add 12 million people to their populations, the rights of the unrecognized urban poor shall only be further marginalized.

Driving Indian Consumption

The fact that the bottom of the pyramid is the fastest growing consumer market in the coming decades has been widely acknowledged, and therefore, slum-dwellers from larger slum inhabitations present a huge new target market for businesses. In a March 2013 article on LiveMint, representatives from companies selling fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) recognized the fact that slum residents represent an important, albeit price sensitive, market segment.

Recent years have seen acceleration in consumption of lower-income segments, while consumption by middle- and high-income groups has remained resilient. A report entitled “India Market Strategy” by Credit Suisse Securities, however, reiterates the LiveMint article in its assertion that the main stimulus to Indian consumption over the next few years will be driven by low-income groups. The direct benefit and direct cash transfer schemes rolled out across the country further contribute to the increased purchasing power of the low-income consumer. While this may portend well for the market, the strengthening of consumer protection laws and the protection of rights — especially of the vulnerable low-income urban consumer — is an issue that shall become increasingly relevant.  The RGI data clearly indicates a growth in lower-income consumption, but how far the data is representative of the total number of the urban poor in the country is questionable.

Conclusion

What the RGI report has accomplished is to draw up some basic data on the conditions of Indian slums. The methodology it adopted, however, is flawed and has consequently depicted a skewed state of affairs that refutes conventional wisdom on Indian slums. Considering that Census data is perceived as highly credible though, it is not unreasonable to assume that it will be used to inform future policy. The RGI would do well to clearly classify the data released in this report, come clean on its limited scope and the problematic nature of its implications.  This would only aid in the more efficient allocation of administrative and financial resources towards urban policy and ensure that it is informed by an accurate assessment and understanding of the operational realities.

While governments have failed to efficiently serve all types of urban communities, it is certain that the urban poor are most adversely affected by defunct delivery mechanisms and are more vulnerable to the logistical inefficiencies of government due to their considerably lower economic bargaining power. Yet again, the oversight of RGI’s reporting only serves to alienate the most vulnerable communities. While it is laudable that the government is initiating efforts towards a better understanding of the contextual landscape of urban poverty and slums, they can only be of value if they are designed with an intent to correctly and thoroughly understand the span of the issue.

Sources:

http://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2013_48/13/Revisiting_the_74th_Constitutional_Amendment_for_Better_Metropolitan_Governance.pdf

https://www.credit-suisse.com/conferences/aic/2012/doc/web/20120829_india.pdf

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Indian-consumption-story/

http://newindianexpress.com/opinion/article1514260.ece

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/05/31/india-journal-how-to-improve-infrastructure-and-slum-life/

http://www.livemint.com/Industry/LyNBizkuOMdmThw6iaoGbN/Five-trends-that-will-drive-FMCG-growth-in-2013.html

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/jMYppv9iGGknRWep7H0yrI/Urban-slum-dwellers-own-assets-permanent-houses-Census-201.html

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-04/delhi/34258982_1_civic-bodies-municipal-solid-waste-unauthorized-colonies

http://mhupa.gov.in/W_new/Slum_Report_NBO.pdf

http://www.arghyam.org/sites/default/files/Sanitation%20Overview_Pavan%20Kumar.pdf

http://www.urbanindia.nic.in/programme/uwss/NUSP.pdf

http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/wtrsani.pdf

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-state-of-the-slum/1099426/

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/amnesty-writes-to-bbmp-over-ejipura-evictions/article4523015.ece

Slum redevelopment and rehabilitation projects are often in a state of deadlock: any significant change requires more resources and land. However, availing of more resources and land requires significant change on the ground. Reflecting the magnitude of the challenge, several ambitious slum redevelopment projects have either been ineffective or have become notorious non-starters. For example in Dhaka, a study conducted in 2011 found that the Bhasantek Rehabilitation Project, started in 1998, had failed to provide shelter to evicted slum-dwellers. In India, plans to redevelop Dharavi have been discussed since 1997 with little progress.

Public opinion of slum redevelopment projects argues for and against redevelopment. The middle- and upper-classes, especially those living close to a slum community, are gratified by the expected improvement to their surroundings. However, the urban poor are by-and-large suspicious of such initiatives, predicting them to be inequitable.

This is largely due to the manner in which redevelopment projects have been handled in the past. Historically, the urban poor have not been included in plans for redevelopment, nor in efforts to relocate them. When provided, temporary facilities are woefully inadequate, and the living and working needs of the urban poor are rarely incorporated into the design of new buildings. Promises of project deadlines and available facilities at redeveloped sites are rarely kept. While real estate developers seem to gain from redevelopment efforts, the urban poor realize little value for themselves, resulting in a historic distrust of developers and redevelopment efforts. Local enterprises in particular have been hard hit, due to both a need for increased investments, as well as the opportunity cost of having to move locations twice over.

In spite of poor historic performance and perceptions, there are new models emerging that indicate a change in how developers approach redevelopment projects, and these efforts finally seem to address the critical issue of building trust within urban poor communities.

What Works

Currently, there seems to be two models of slum and cluster redevelopment that work. One is promoted by private developers such as Omkar. They offer temporary residential facilities that are as convenient as can be made possible. These private developers design the redevelopment project for dual purposes: to build low-income, high-rise housing and commercial space for slum-dwellers, and to build luxury apartment complexes or commercial space. The sale of luxury apartments or commercial space then more than covers the costs of redevelopment projects.

The second model is coordinated by not-for-profit entities, such as trusts, along with private partners like design firms. In this model, the government provides funding while not-for-profit entities are involved in community mobilization and facilitate development of the master redevelopment plan. This model typically has no for-sale luxury component, and the redeveloped area often remains entirely with the erstwhile slum residents.

A critical component for the success of these two different models is community mobilization and engagement; model success depends on including the community, recognizing their needs and addressing them effectively. This has been recognized and included in the “Delhi Declaration,” after the International Conference on Inclusive Urban Planning in New Delhi on February 18-19, 2013.

While non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have traditionally been able to work with the community based on their longstanding goodwill and familiarity with residents, private companies are now adopting a similar approach with intense community engagement over a shorter time period. Private players are able to increase their efficacy by enabling their field people to make small, on-the-spot investment and design decisions that will help solve relatively simple problems as they crop up.

Irrespective of which model of redevelopment is adopted, the greatest challenge is building trust within urban poor communities where education is low and most transactions informal. Convincing such communities of the value of written agreements and contracts, and helping them understand design, financial projections and other aspects of the project can be very time- and resource-intensive with no guarantee of results.

Aside from private and not-for-profit players, the critical stakeholder group that holds the keys to the success of any redevelopment project are local businesses, resident employers of informal workers and home-based workers, many of whom are women.

Enterprise Concerns

Most slum communities are hubs of informal entrepreneurial activity. These enterprises are vital not only for the micro economy of a slum, but also to the wider macro economy of a city and its country. Since these enterprises provide livelihoods to the local urban poor, it is understandable that any redevelopment proposal is met with serious reservations regarding the cost of temporary dwellings, re-establishment, loss of customers and maintenance costs of the new buildings.

Given the impact local enterprises have on the urban poor, any redevelopment proposal is likely to affect enterprise owners and employees. Not only would productivity and revenues suffer in the short-term during the transition period, but also, the enterprises will incur costs in moving their machinery and equipment. This uncertainty of enterprise tenure would prevail until construction is completed on the redevelopment project and possession handed back over to slum-dwellers, whereupon local entrepreneurs have to undertake the exercise of moving back to their original place of business. For enterprises that are directly interacting with customers, this could translate into a significant financial loss since they are unlikely to spend additional time or money looking for shops in another location.

Another important concern is the time needed for redevelopment and the probability of a project being completed on time. In the event of project delays, the financial losses to these slum enterprises may mount on account of extended leases at temporary locations, and a costly change in plans and schedules.

For most local entrepreneurs in slum communities, the long-term concern is the location of the shop post-redevelopment, the amount of space available and the suitability of that space for their enterprise. In most redevelopment plans, proposals are dominated by new multi-story buildings, as opposed to single-story homes, in order to make space for roads and other infrastructural amenities. As a result, many existing enterprises would need to find a new way of conducting business; the benefits that came from proximity and visibility to the streets may be lost, thereby making the possibility of losing existing and new customers a serious challenge.

Enterprises may be offered a choice between a smaller space on the ground floor of a redeveloped building or a larger space on a higher floor. The suitability of the solution depends on the nature of the business. For example, retailers would prefer to have their shops on the ground floor and close to a street, even if it means a smaller shop area. On the other hand, service providers may be more amenable to the idea of a higher floor with larger area.

Another significant concern of urban poor entrepreneurs and enterprises is the suitability of the planned buildings and infrastructure for their business. Enterprises that work with oversized raw material, such as timber and wrought iron, often need to transport and store them in close proximity to their workplace. Even relatively lightweight raw materials such as rags and scraps come in voluminous bulk packaging. The standardized design of the redeveloped tenements may offer less opportunity for such business-driven space customization. Businesses such as tanning shops and potters, amongst others, are likely to need customized infrastructure that has to be incorporated in the master redevelopment plan.

Lastly, but arguably most important, is the fact that the cost of maintaining residence and work in a redeveloped building is an aspect that gets little attention in the planning process. While the durability of makeshift homes in slums may be inferior, seasonal maintenance requirements, such as fortification during the rainy season, can be easily and inexpensively met. However, high-rise buildings would constantly require resources — electricity to run elevator banks or to pump water to rooftop tanks for general building use. In addition, these buildings require expensive diesel power backup to reliably maintain essential services during times of power outages.

There is little data available to compare the direct and indirect maintenance costs of living in informal slum dwellings versus brick-and-mortar buildings built as redeveloped housing. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the urban poor often vacate the redeveloped property that they receive and resume living in a different slum community due to the new, higher maintenance costs, as well as the profit potential of renting or selling a newly redeveloped residence to complement other income generation efforts.

Learning from Bhendi Bazaar

Bhendi Bazaar is a settlement in south Mumbai that is over 100 years old, and while it is not a slum, there are some unique aspects to its redevelopment that are worth understanding as lessons for slum rehabilitation. Age, a dense population and lack of infrastructure upgradation has left the area with narrow and squalid dead-end alleyways, crumbling buildings that are dangerous and unfit for human habitation, and limited water and sanitation facilities — not unlike many slum communities. The majority of the buildings in the area are chawls, or lower-middle class housing with shared verandas and bathrooms, and often rented out to several families.

The Bhendi Bazaar Redevelopment Project (BBRP) received environmental clearance in March 2013. It is currently the first major cluster redevelopment project in Mumbai and is being overseen by the charitable Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT). The Trust has engaged several reputable private firms and consultants to work on this project.

The plan covers 16.5 acres of land, a notably small area compared to Dharavi’s sprawl of over 500 acres, for instance. The project affects more than 20,000 people, compared to Dharavi’s over 600,000. The plan includes about 270 buildings with 3,200 residential houses between 100 to 300 square feet each, and over 1,200 businesses.

The master plan has gone through several participatory iterations. Abbas Master, the CEO of the BBRP, emphasizes inclusive and secular planning. “From the very beginning of the project, we took a participatory approach to the project and involved all the stakeholders through focus group discussions. Apart from this, we had involved representatives from various businesses, where we discussed all issues that will affect them and their suggestions during transit phase of the project and their preferences in the development of the Master Plan as to what kind of environment needs to be for commercial to flourish.  All communities residing in the area were involved, and the Trust clearly communicated that the redevelopment was to benefit all of them.”

Since residents chose a high-street shopping design for the redeveloped locality while participating in the master plan development exercise, most existing enterprises will continue to face the street even after redevelopment. The design has incentivized enterprises to move to higher floors if they so choose by providing larger shop areas. While customizing construction for specific enterprises is still a challenge, it is overcome by appropriately allocating area on the higher floors when possible.

The Trust is using smart design to ensure that the redevelopment is green, easy to maintain, and stays cool. The proposed towers are organized by height to allow the cooling sea breezes to reach residents. The project has been designed to consume less electricity than market standards, and by recycling and sewage treatment, it discharges less sewage. This addresses concerns around the availability of water and electricity, and also reduces the need for air-conditioning, as well as the overall maintenance costs of the buildings.

Interestingly, the project makes no distinction between the residences that would be allocated to current residents and those that are earmarked for sale. This has ensured that existing residents are treated on-par with new buyers. However, this has only been possible due to the unique not-for-profit nature of the project. “The project is run under the aegis of His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin  Saheb, and profits, if any, are earmarked for community and neighborhood development initiatives. This has greatly enhanced the trust of locals in the project,” Abbas explains.

He also points out the primary difference between the Bhendi Bazaar project and other slum redevelopment projects is education. “The residents of Bhendi Bazaar are engaged in various businesses and are educated. Our Project is under the Urban Renewal Scheme as against the scheme for Slum Redevelopment under which the Dharavi Redevelopment Project is. In comparison to Dharavi, the size of our Project is smaller and more manageable,” he says. This, along with tenure security, are aspects that will need to be addressed in all upcoming slum redevelopment projects.

Conclusion

It is the people – the urban poor – not the buildings, that are at the center of slum redevelopment. Many of these people are entrepreneurs or self-employed, and are looking for means to protect and expand their livelihoods. Due to the long drawn-out process and uncertainty of outcomes, redevelopment projects on large expanses of slum-dwelling land are viewed with suspicion.

Entrepreneurs and their enterprises in slums are a critical stakeholder group for redevelopment. While tenure is a long-recognized challenge that needs to be addressed for slum-dwellers, education seems to be another significant area for intervention. However, both of these are long-term interventions and progress is slow.

As a starting point, however, building trust with urban poor communities by carefully identifying their concerns and addressing them can mean progress. The BBRP example reiterates that projects and services for any community, including the urban poor, cannot afford to be poorly conceived, designed and implemented.

There is, in fact, a pressing need to make slum redevelopment projects greener, cleaner and less polluting than before. This would make resources such as electricity and water less of a concern and add to the chances of the urban poor actually living in them by making the maintenance costs less burdensome.

If more such initiatives could be undertaken, there would be greater precedent of whether collaboration between the community, and private and not-for-profit stakeholders provides the “perfect” equation for equitable redevelopment for the urban poor and the city.

Sources:

http://oaithesis.eur.nl/ir/repub/asset/11554/(1)35611.pdf

http://www.sra.gov.in/HTMLPages/Dharavi.htm

http://forbesindia.com/article/big-bet/how-omkar-cracked-the-messy-business-of-slum-redevelopment/32730/1

http://www.microhomesolutions.org/project/sundar-nagari-slum-redevelopment

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=92316

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/dharavi-is-an-entrepreneur-hub-too/article3696371.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/11/mumbai-slums-developers-profits-residents

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/2013031420130314022523984d286edb2/Bhendi-Bazaar-redevelopment-project-given-green-clearance.html?pageno=3

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/panel-recommends-bhendi-bazaar-redevelopment-for-environmental-nod/1055436/

http://www.sbut.in/home-sbut/home-saifee-burhani-upliftment-trust.htm

Sharadha, aged 14, lives in one of Hyderabad’s slums. Her mother works as domestic help in local housing complexes. Sharadha likes going to school and aspires to be a teacher someday. However, because she has a poor attendance record, she may not be able to move onto the next grade. She has invariably been skipping school for five days every month since she was 12 because it was “that time of the month.”

A Social Taboo

Sharadha’s story is an all too familiar one throughout South Asia. A large proportion of girls in India miss an average of 4-5 days of school, and at least 23% of girls in India drop out of school when they start menstruating. Around 300 million Indian women and girls do not have access to safe menstrual hygiene products. Over 88% of women use unhygienic alternatives during menstruation: women living in urban slums and rural villages use dirty rags or nothing at all during their menses. About 77% of women in India use an old cloth during menstruation. Unhygienic practices largely prevail amongst lower-income groups.

In Bangladesh, 80% of women use an old cloth for absorption of blood and 42% dried the same cloth under the sun before reusing it. Most women in Indian slums dry their homemade sanitary napkins behind doors, so that they are out of sight, and remove them when male family members return home. These women wear the napkins again, even if they are still wet. These unhygienic practices can cause various vaginal and urinary tract infections as well as skin diseases. Reproductive tract infections are 70% more common in women who use unhygienic alternatives to recommended sanitary napkins during menstruation.

The subject of menstruation in South Asia and its underlying issues are a social taboo that brings about shame. More often than not, women of any social strata are uncomfortable openly discussing what is perceived as a private, unclean matter. Lower-income women, in particular, follow certain social exclusion trends that include not being able to visit a place of worship, not bathing, sleeping separately from her family, not eating certain foods, and in extreme cases, not being able to leave their dwellings. A WaterAid study in Nepal shows that 89% of women abide by some form of social exclusion or restrictions during menstruation.

Precious Sanitary Napkins

Female sanitation facilities are inadequate and suffer the most due to the long tradition of taboo attached to menstruation. Using sanitary napkins can considerably change the face of female sanitation across South Asia. International organizations, private NGOs and social enterprises have been working towards developing adequate female sanitation awareness and facilities in the region. For example, through their WASH projects, WaterAid has implemented programs to provide hygienic sanitary napkins to girls and women from underserved communities.

Even private players, like Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson, are working with governments and NGOs to provide free or subsidized sanitary napkins to the poor. Some other, simple steps have been taken at the grassroots level to improve the poor’s access to sanitary napkins. For example, teachers at the Jana Jagriti Secondary School contribute INR1 (~US$0.02) per day from their salaries to buy sanitary napkins for schoolgirls.

Accessibility and affordability of sanitary napkins are major issues for low-income groups. There has been an innovative movement to produce affordable and environmentally-friendly sanitary napkins to promote menstrual hygiene for the bottom of the pyramid. Modern feminine hygiene, including sanitary napkins, is perceived as a luxury by the poor, and older traditions of using cloths are preferred. Goonj, an Indian NGO, started the ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ initiative that uses cloth from urban households to make sanitary napkins that are sold at INR5 (US$0.09) for a pack of five. After the waste cloth is collected, it is recycled, cleaned and cut into appropriate lengths. This cloth napkin is cleaned, unlike the dirty rags that are generally used. The cloth napkins are 100% biodegradable and can be reused or disposed. The process to manufacture these cloths is manual and provides employment to women in slums, supplying the poor in rural and urban areas with a comfortable, hygienic good and spreading awareness about the issue.

Urban poor women are more aware about what sanitary napkins are, compared to their rural counterparts, since they are exposed to more feminine hygiene awareness and options in the city. The widespread availability of kirana stores and pharmacies makes the market for sanitary napkins and other menstrual hygiene products larger than that in rural areas. However, this does not necessarily remove the perception of menstruation as taboo in the urban poor woman’s life. In addition to the social taboo inside and outside her home, she is faced with challenges of affordability, insufficient knowledge of women’s health and poor living conditions.

Addressing Need through Innovation

Given the gravity of the situation, there are various innovative initiatives unfolding in the field to meet the needs of women and girls. Arunachalam Muruganandam, founder of the well-known Jayaashree Industries, gained appreciation for his low-cost, environmentally-friendly sanitary napkins for underserved women by poor women through an easily replicable manufacturing process using a small machine. Currently, over 225 Jayashree machines have been set up across 14 states in India.

Picking up on the concept of producing affordable and easy-to-dispose sanitary napkins, methods using different raw materials have come into play. The Department of Textiles at Lady Irwin College, Delhi University, is attempting to produce low-cost sanitary napkins by using cotton fiber from knitwear waste. In 2012, SaferWe Foundation launched a program in Karnataka to provide pads made of bamboo pulp and cotton to rural and urban women.

Another such organization is Aakar Innovations, a social enterprise born out of India’s National Innovation Foundation (NIF) large database. Aakar started by using Muruganandam’s mini-sanitary napkin machine and has developed it further to produce 2,000-2,500 napkins daily, involving self-help groups and women in the entire process. It uses raw materials like banana stems, bagasse, bio plastic and water hyacinth pulp. Jaydeep Mandal, founder of Aakar Innovations, says that, “The machine is going to launch soon and is going create hygienic, low-cost and biodegradable sanitary napkins.” Aakar is set to install its machines in the slums of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, along with launching 600 machines in five years across Gujarat state in partnership with State Government of Gujarat.

The momentum of providing hygienic feminine sanitation has grown in Bangladesh, too. Phulki is an NGO that started working with poor migrant women in Dhaka. One of its focus areas is building awareness of positive hygiene practices during menstruation to avoid infection, as well as producing and supplying affordable sanitary napkins. The issue of a lack of hygienic sanitation for women surfaced during Phulki’s slum sanitation development program. Phulki researched the requirements of sanitary napkins, set up machines and trained women from the community to produce and sell low-cost sanitary napkins in slums. The organization has focused on garment workers in Bangladesh: the garment industry employs 1.5 million workers in factories across the country and 80% are women. The NGO initiated talks with different garment factories to set up sanitary napkin machines on their premises. To date, five garment factories have set up machines where, at some point in the day, each worker produces these napkins in bulk, which are then sold at an average rate of ~BDT30 (US$0.38) per pack.

This is a small step in promoting the cause of female sanitation in Bangladesh. Suraiya Haque, founder of Phulki, says that, “There is a lot that needs to be done towards improving the sanitary conditions of women, which not only includes providing low-cost sanitary napkins, but also provision of adequate toilets, especially in schools.” Sharadha’s story echoes this fact: girls are missing school because there is no separate toilet facility for them, which is especially important during their menstruation days.

Municipal bodies in Mumbai provide 5,993 public toilets for men, compared to only 3,536 for women. In Delhi, there are an estimated 1,534 public toilets for men and 132 for women. Most government schools located near slums do not have a separate toilet facility for girls. The idea of inadequate provision of toilets has resonated with international programs like WASH, who is working towards providing appropriate infrastructure so that girls can safely and privately have access to a toilet.

A Stark Information Gap

Regardless of the interventions, fighting the large awareness gap that includes knowledge on the process of menstruation and women’s health versus the myths that exist is imperative. “One of the biggest challenges of promoting menstrual hygiene and supply[ing] sanitary napkins is that there exists a large awareness gap in slums and villages,” says Mandal. Providing sanitary napkins alone is not going to solve the issue of menstrual hygiene and health. “Awareness in terms of what menstruation is and disposal of materials is very weak especially amongst low-income groups. Due to [a] lack of infrastructure, slum women especially have no place to hide or dispose their cloths or napkins; and therefore turn to unhygienic methods,” explains Haque.

Education about menstruation being a natural biological function, and not a shameful taboo, is an important distinction that needs to be supported by larger scale awareness campaigns. In 2012, Geneva-based Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) arranged for a public education campaign to raise awareness about menstrual hygiene; around 200,000 people participated. WSSCC interviewed 775 people individually, as well as a focus group of 12,000 people, and it was found that 90% of the women did not know what menstruation was until they had their first menses. After this campaign in 2012, the WSSCC successfully introduced the idea of menstrual hygiene management as a part of the future 2015 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets on water, sanitation and hygiene.

To close this awareness gap, Aditi Gupta, a former student from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, started Menstrupedia in October 2012. Gupta aims to raise awareness of menstruation and break all misconceptions around it. “Girls start menstruating even before the subject is introduced in their syllabus,” says Gupta. Menstrupedia has an online platform through which information on the subject is shared. It is in the process of creating a comic book that parents can buy for their daughters to make learning about menstruation more acceptable. To cater to the needs of low-income groups, Menstrupedia will ensure that its comic books are available in regional languages. It is starting to rope in NGOs for awareness and distribution programs, and aims to implement the program within a year.

Along with making women aware about the process of menstruation, breaking myths around it and providing them with hygienic avenues, medical support is also essential. Samhita Social Ventures  partnered with Johnson & Johnson’s Stayfree Women for Change Program to spread awareness of the issue and to also provide medical support. Medical health camps are set up in slums where women can speak to volunteer gynecologists about general information or specific issues they are facing. The Program also provides counselling on nutrition and healthcare practices. Each health camp gives out a kit that contains any prescribed medication for three months, and a free six month supply of sanitary napkins.

Priya Naik from Samhita Social Venturessuggests that urban poor women are exposed to media, and though that is certainly one way of highlighting these critical issues, the scope of the problem is large and various additional steps need to be taken. To that end, Samhita Social Ventures is in the process of training college students and giving them resources to organize camps to reach out to the poor.

Conclusion

“The cause for menstrual hygiene and health does not stop at providing sanitary napkins. It is in fact a long process,” says Naik. The cause of hygienic menstruation has various strings attached to it that include awareness and medical support. Single players in the field cannot fulfill the large-scale need. “As a long-term goal, Samhita Social Ventures is looking to create a consortium with like-minded companies, including pharmaceuticals and NGOs, to make a large-scale impact,” says Naik.

While there have been many socially-driven innovative interventions, the impacts have been on a much smaller scale. In order to address the issue at large, a comprehensive approach is required where all stakeholders, including the government, the private sector and civil society, collaborate and take equal responsibility in promoting the cause of menstrual hygiene and health. Also, through technology platforms and media, the taboo factor attached to menstruation needs to be broken across the country regardless of economic stature.

Owing to lack of awareness on the importance of feminine hygiene, the idea of spending on sanitary napkins might not fit into their monthly expenses. Urban poor women also face issues of privacy because of the lack of space and inadequate sanitation facilities. To top it up, age-old myths and traditions around menstruation endure. There is a strong need to promote better living conditions for urban poor women, in conjunction to spreading awareness of menstruation and women’s health, so that they may lead an informed, healthy life with dignity.

Sources:

http://thealternative.in/inclusivity/low-cost-sanitary-napkins-real-i-pad/

http://www.indiasanitationportal.org/16535

http://www.indiasanitationportal.org/17184

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http://businessinnovationfacility.org/profiles/blogs/finding-ways-to-eliminate-the-sanitary-waste

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http://samhita.org/articles/stayfree-women-for-change-program/detail

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http://www.talesofchange.in/

In January 2013, the Indian Railways Ministry announced a fare hike – the first after almost a decade – across India. The fares of Ordinary Second Class (suburban) trains went up by INR0.02 (<US$0.01) per kilometer, while non-suburban travel will increase by INR0.03 per kilometer. In fact, by the end of January, Mumbai suburban train travellers already went through their second round of fare hikes in just three weeks.

There have been mixed reactions about the fare hikes, but lower-income groups, such as the famed Mumbai dabbawallas, have expressed their incapacity to pay the rising prices of living in a city, including transportation. The rise in public transportation fares, combined with the steady increase in gas prices, makes public and private mobility affordable only to the middle and upper classes of urban society. Affordable transportation dominates as the call of the hour to combat growing poverty in cities.

The Demographics of Mass Transit

Urban transportation systems across India, and most of South Asia for that matter, have become indispensible, but resulting issues are overwhelming cities. With the increase in the number of motor vehicles on roads, cities are facing big problems like high levels of air and noise pollution, pervasive traffic jams and a decline in pedestrian safety. Another big problem is the associated expense of transportation, particularly for the urban poor. With the geographic boundaries of cities expanding outwards, it is more affordable for the urban poor to live farther away from city centers, the hubs of economic activity and numerous livelihood opportunities.

In developing countries, poor families spend upto 20% of their income on transportion. Most poor people must commute to their place of employment, or in the case of children, to school. In India alone, this accounts for 90% of the urban poor population’s transportation needs. The growing expense of transportation results in low mobility amongst the poor, and in turn, reduces their livelihood prospects, as well as access to education and healthcare.

Private versus Public Transportation

According to a 2011 article written by Aysha Faiz, the number of motor vehicles in India is likely to grow by 7-8% per year over the next two decades. Because of the rise in income across urban middle classes, the privately-owned vehicle population has also substantially increased. The rise of private transportation is a key cause for escalating urban congestion, environment degradation and reduced public transportation use.

The growth in privately-owned motor transportation has caused a decline in the overall use of public transport. However, the urban poor are still public transportation customers, and a majority of the lower-income populations cannot afford private modes of transportation. They must therefore rely on public transit or non-motorized transportation (i.e., bicycles). In Delhi, a 2005 study shows that lower-income groups made more than 50% of their trips by foot, about 33% by bus and about 9% by bicycle.

Traditionally, bicycles have been the prime, most affordable mode of transportation for the poor. In some Indian cities, there are even low-interest loans to purchase bicycles available to the poor. Bangladesh’s cities, on the other hand, do not have a similar model to India’s cities, making bicycles unaffordable for the poor. This is due to the lack of significant domestic bicycle industries, and heavy import duties put these non-motorized means beyond the reach of the poor, both urban and rural. There are loans available in Bangladesh, but they are typically used to purchase tricycles so that the new vehicle owners can become rickshaw-pullers and earn an income.

Today, however, the overall incidence of bicycle and tricycle usage has reduced. Growing traffic and a lack of available space restricts non-motorized methods to bylanes and city outskirts. For the poor, non-motorized transportation options have become increasingly inconvenient given the far distances they must travel from their homes to their place of employ. Municipal authorities have less incentive to develop adequate walking or bicycle lanes since high rates of motorization require greater infrastructure capacity, resulting in the transformation of cities from “car-optional” to “car-necessary” domains.

Bus Rapid Transport

Buses carry over 90% of public transport in Indian cities and are comparatively more affordable and accessible than most other forms of public transportation. The current bus systems have not been able to meet the growing demand for public transportaion, thereby leading to overcrowding in buses and traffic congestion. City buses usually travel shorter distances, making a change to another bus or another transportation mode necessary, thereby adding to the overall cost and time to travel.

The conditions of bus services have also deteriorated. Most buses are old, not properly maintained and do not meet the latest environmental standards. To affect a makeover in India’s city bus systems, there are efforts by the government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to improve their quality and services.

In addition to existing bus systems, the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system has emerged as a low-cost and sustainable mode of public transportation. BRT is a low-carbon mass transit system that runs along special corridors with detour services and high-speed transfer stations at key city locations. Latin American cities like Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Curitiba are success stories that have adapted BRTs to their respective cities. On average, BRT systems can be built in a fraction of the time of light rail, and can cost 30 times less to construct and three times less to operate. Organizations like the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and Embarq have been working with governments worldwide to promote BRT systems.

If implemented, BRT systems can prove to be an important step in creating pro-poor and pro-environment public transportation. Especially in smaller cities, public transportion, such as buses and metro railways, new infrastructure needs can be prohibitively expensive, yet BRT systems may prove to be a viable, sustainable option. Some Indian cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Pune and Ahmedabad, amongst others, have already implemented BRT systems. Ahmedabad’s BRT system is considered to be the most developed and advanced in the country. Within seven months of opening, 34% of private vehicle users shifted to using the BRT system. While the Ahmedabad BRT is deemed a great success, a study shows that only 13.7% of low-income households use it.

Across the country, there have been debates on the inclusion of BRT systems in the national urban transport plans. The opposition has mainly come from the middle and upper classes with arguments like: “Those who travel in their own cars are the decision-makers; therefore, they should get a priority over buses. He believes that bus users can wait because they are engaged in less important jobs. The Army chief cannot be kept waiting. You cannot keep a commander-in-chief waiting in traffic while his army is waiting for his orders. How does it matter if a peon reaches office five minute before time?” There have been counter-arguments as well, but the fact that debates like these surface and have credibility, show a major social bias that exists in the Indian context.

The Metro Drama

Major Indian cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad are going through large infrastructural changes to build a metro railway that connect different parts of the city. Delhi has already witnessed a successfully functioning metro railway line. Though it has been a boon for the middle and upper classes, it has been at the expense of the poor who find themselves paying fares at least three times costlier than that of buses. Even if the poor make use of metro railway transportation, oftentimes, a second, connecting mode of transportation is needed to reach a final destination. This thereby increases the overall expense – financial and time-wise – of metro railway travel. Interestingly, the effect of this has been a positive impact on cycle Delhi’s rickshaw-pullers, members of the urban poor class themselves, by increasing the demand for their services to and from stations.

Call of the Hour

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for cutting the number of people living in poverty by half by 2015. While the MDGs do not include transportation interventions, they may be a critical component to meeting anti-poverty goals. Affordable transportation and urban poverty are interrelated. The smallest fare hike could substantially reduce the mobility of the poor. Another related issue is that of accessibility given the expanding, ever-changing borders of India’s – and South Asia’s – cities.

There are two clear signals that must be heeded to improve the quality of life for all in cities: non-motorized transportation needs to be promoted, and infrastructure should be developed. In India, both the central government and for-profit organizations have been pushing for sustainable bike sharing models. Cycle Chalao (“Ride a Cycle” in English), the flagship program of Impact Carbocuts Private Limited, is one such intervention in the city of Pune that aimed to build affordable public transportation. The program was successful in making an impact: it resulted in the Ministry of Urban Development releasing a bicycle-sharing toolkit and additional similar bicycle-sharing contracts being formed.

Conclusion

The implementation of urban transport plans need to take into account the affordability and accessibility needs of the poor. While transportation may have once been perceived a luxury, it certainly has become a necessity and an important tool in the fight against poverty. It becomes important for intiatives, like BRT systems, to be socially inclusive and expand their reach to lower-income groups. Each city needs to find an amenable solution to its public transportation woes and adapt it so that it may suit the needs of the city. For instance, there is a lost opportunity with the Ahmedabad BRT system to reach a greater number of the urban poor because of the lack of walking and cycling facilities along the BRT corridors, which may have made it a more plausible transportation solution for the urban poor.

With an eye on the “bigger picture,” the perception of public transportion systems needs to drastically change in India. There needs to be an appreciation of public transportation as a service for all city residents, regardless of socio-economic status. This change in perception will also make way for a reduction in traffic congestion, additional expensive infrastructure that caters to private transportation modes and pollution. Extending public transportion to the urban poor would help in furthering their inclusion in economic and social activities, and perhaps even narrow the rich-poor divide.  Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, said: “A developed country is not a place where poor have cars. It is where the rich use public transport.”

Sources:

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-23/chennai/36505109_1_hike-season-ticket-fare

http://www.firstpost.com/india/how-rail-fare-hike-will-punch-your-pockets-from-today-596056.html

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2013/jan/100113-second-fare-hike-in-3-weeks-for-suburban-trains.htm

http://www.gtkp.com/assets/uploads/20091127-182046-6236-en-urban-transport-and-poverty.pdf

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http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/Aysha_Paper-ITEJournal-Dec11.pdf

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTRANSPORT/214578-1099319223335/20460038/TP-3_affordability_final.pdf

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http://www.globalurban.org/GUDMag06Vol2Iss1/Hook.htm

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http://bike-sharing.blogspot.in/2012/03/indias-bike-sharing-tipping-point.html

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http://books.google.co.in/books?id=avChA3SmxaoC&pg=PA194&lpg=PA194&dq=Is+Delhi+metro+affordable+for+the+poor&source=bl&ots=ddus5Wt0at&sig=RiVqJd_K5GNybkz2DuOirxGUFLc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OZY7UaC2KoKzrAf3x4GoAg&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Is%20Delhi%20metro%20affordable%20for%20the%20poor&f=false

http://unep.org/transport/lowcarbon/newsletter_3/pdf/BRT_PolicySummary.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19572583

http://www.itdp.org/where-we-work/india/

India’s landmark Right to Education (RTE) Act was legislated in 2010, and since then, central and state governments have been working together and independently to support the cause of universal education. Over 220 million Indian children between the ages of six and 14 are recipients of a sub-par education. This is overwhelmingly due to issues regarding language barriers, poor literacy standards, teacher training and preparedness, and anti-inclusive practices. The challenges of any education sector are large hurdles, but India is making positive strides towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal of education for all.

The question of how to provide the best possible education to all of India’s children has given rise to heated debate about the government’s role in the education sector, as well as what role other stakeholders have to promote the ambitious goals of the RTE Act. Is education purely the domain of the government, or is there room for other players to make impact? With the general perception of private education seen as more positive and of higher quality than public education, the role non-government stakeholders play is critical, given the challenges India’s education sector must confront and resolve.

RTE Oversight

By April 2013, all schools in India must be in compliance with specific stipulations outlined in the RTE Act. The Act has requirements regarding: infrastructure, the maximum pupil-teacher ratio, minimum teacher qualifications, teacher salaries and work conditions, standardized syllabi, special training for children who have been out of school, and recognized formal schools. How schools meet these stipulations vary based on school type (e.g. government, NGO, private budget, non-formal, home education), but all must obey or face shutdown.

In the IDFC’s latest India Infrastructure Report, focused on education, it is posited that, “In effect, the Act means impending death for thousands of non-government schools around the country that do not meet these standards and are unlikely to be able to.” According to the report, which discusses the current education landscape in India post-RTE, there are five non-state education providers that will be forced to shut down as a result of non-compliance to the Act. These providers are: NGO or community schools for the poor, alternative schools, non-formal education and private budget schools. Nearly 40 million children attending these non-government schools will be forced to enroll in government schools if their current education centers close – a grim prospect given that there is an undersupply of approximately one million teachers serving children already enrolled in government schools.

Non-Government Education Providers At-Risk

NGOs have long provided the poor with a viable education option for their children. “NGOs have been particularly effective in penetrating remote or difficult areas or groups where cultural, social or geographical barriers keep children away from attending school.” The impact that NGOs can play in education is no more apparent than in India’s slum communities, where government failure to build schools has presented a distinct opportunity for other stakeholders. Slum communities are home to people from across India – they represent different languages, levels of literacy and cultures. An effective school would have to find a way to confront the diversity of classrooms head-on, but the government has not been the purveyor of such solutions; NGOs have.

There is little political will to build quality schools that serve slum children only because they are not seen as legal city residents. This disagreement over legal status has rendered urban poor children even more helpless in the scheme of securing a better future for themselves and their families. NGO schools, or schools that cater to poor communities, understand the local context and work within that framework to affect change. The NGOs that have been successful will then find themselves “edged out” because of the RTE Act’s requirements.

Alternative, or “experimental,” schools are also at-risk. Many of these schools target marginalized children with a more progressive vision of education. “Their approach involves non-competitive learning environments with a flexible learning pace, enriched curriculum and child-centered pedagogy, non-threatening continuous assessment, and welcoming of different learners’ uniqueness and mother-tongues.” Though alternative schools have traditionally devised their own policies and approach to education, they have been able to support innovation in government schools as well by imparting good classroom working models, for instance. The different approach of alternative schools, however, puts them in a vulnerable position.

Non-formal education is another category of education that the Act excludes from its credo. In 1986, the Government of India legislated the National Policy on Education, which was a program targeting “deprived children, school drop-outs, children from habitations without formal schools, working children” and others. After completing Class V, these children were expected to continue their education in formal schools. NGOs have been encouraged to operate non-formal education centers to serve 15-25 children in each class. Though these centers are more common in rural areas, they do exist in Indian cities. The RTE Act, however, has effectively “outlawed” such non-formal education centers.

Private budget schools are a category of schooling that includes “low-cost or unrecognized private” institutions. The 2011 edition of the Annual Status of Education Report notes that official figures puts the number of private budget schools at 26,377, which served 2.67 million students. In Bihar alone, for example, the capital Patna was found to have approximately 845 unrecognized private budget schools out of the city’s total 1,224. Though there may be concerns about education standards and quality at so-called unrecognized institutions, these schools are indispensible to local poor populations. Children and their parents can attend these schools, which may provide a more stable learning environment than government schools to learn English, for instance. Taking away this avenue of learning for children and their families because it does not comply with the RTE Act could deal a devastating blow to urban poor populations seeking accessible, affordable ways to educate themselves.

Homeschooling is the fifth and final category of non-governmental education provision that is at-risk because of the RTE Act. “There are a small but growing number of Indian parents opting for home-schooling, often because they are dissatisfied with the mainstream system, or feel that rigid school structures don’t allow their children to pursue other interests.” Homeschooling in India currently does not require any registration and is completely unregulated. However, because of the RTE Act’s dismantling of the Open Basic Education scheme, which in the past allowed homeschooled students to sit for the same Class X exams as their peers who attend formal schools.

Debunking Common Assumptions

Though the RTE Act aims to increase the numbers of children that have access to school and improve the quality of education received, one cannot help but question if the shutting down of thousands of purported non-government or “non-formal” institutions will be best for school-aged children. The IDFC report addresses this question by looking at the arguments for RTE’s requirements.

The first assumption is that the government is the ultimate purveyor of education and that other stakeholders are not needed. It is a commonplace argument: the government is responsible for educating its country’s children. Education as a public service is a compelling argument, “However it is simply unrealistic to expect the government to achieve this on its own.” With the April 2013 deadline for RTE compliance looming on the near horizon, it is clear that the Indian government has a full plate. Education is not the sole issue on its agenda, and given the population of young people involved, it may in fact be unreasonable to expect the government to be the sole responsible stakeholder in the quest to reform India’s education sector.

The second assumption is that a majority of non-government or non-formal schools are of “low quality,” and therefore an Indian child’s right to a quality education is being denied. Though there is no unanimous consensus, there is evidence that private schooling – or any school type that is not government-owned – “provide[s] better or at least comparable quality to government schools; so far none have indicated that they are any worse.” Despite “inconclusive” evidence, it does not seem appropriate to shut down thousands of non-government schools; this is akin to penalizing schools that are doing well for the ones that are faring poorly for whatever reason. More research, then, is needed to understand how these non-government schools are performing, how they compare to the average government school and what are the learning outcomes for the typical student who attends them. In the context of urban India, this research is especially important in that it will help education stakeholders evaluate the challenges and needs of its growing urban poor populations.

The third assumption is possibly the most controversial: it is the idea that a quality education can only be delivered by “high infrastructure, teacher qualifications and salaries.” The IDFC report makes a critical point regarding this assumption: “A more fundamental issue is how the Act defines quality education. [The RTE Act] states that the government’s obligation is to ‘ensure good quality elementary education conforming to the standards and norms specified in the Schedule’ – a Schedule that talks almost entirely about infrastructure, numbers and inputs but mentions nothing about learning processes or outcomes for children.” Given the parameters of the government’s definition of a quality education, there does seem to be a very narrow scope for how education can and should be delivered. The report goes on to say, “At its essence, quality education is one that enables students to learn with understanding, to learn how to learn, to think for themselves, to realize their full potential, and to develop an open mind committed to values of equality, freedom and service.” These are lofty goals for any education system, but since the RTE Act does have an aspirational tone as well as a practical one, the assumption of what constitutes a quality education must be re-examined.

The fourth and final assumption is that the private sector, unlike the government, is driven purely by profit and “will invariably deepen inequality and exploitation.” As can be seen in the aforementioned section on non-government school types, the so-called private sector in this context is much greater than profit-seeking organizations. NGOs, alternative, non-formal and other private initiatives have been established to achieve social impact by reaching poor and vulnerable populations. The scope of what is “private,” then, must be clarified before the assumption of profiteering is made and the value of private education dismissed.

Interestingly, this latter assumption is loaded with a mistrust of what free markets are capable of. In a country like India where the population is significant and its needs are great, relying on non-government sources for education cannot be construed as a weakness or as settling for lesser quality. If a competitive environment is encouraged and monitored, great strides can be made. But this can only occur if government policy does not “strangle” the sector with bureaucratic processes that really stagnate reform. Kerala state, in India’s south, is a prime example of what the market can accomplish: it “…has a unique model of choice and competition with among the highest percentage of private schools in the country, and also among the highest quality government schools.”

Stress on PPPs

With different education models being enacted around the world, the Government of India does not have to look farther than within its own national borders to see what meaningful innovation can accomplish in the education sector. States like Gujarat and Kerala are proving that it can be done. Achieving universal education is a chief priority on any country’s agenda, but are all of RTE’s requirements really the best way to fulfill that goal?

It is for this reason that public-private partnerships (PPPs), once again, proves to be a viable, sustainable solution for meeting India’s needs. The experience and expertise of non-government players should not be ignored: since schools have been operating – irrespective of their “recognized” or “unrecognized” status – they have insight into the challenges and needs of various communities, and this is valuable information that the government cannot afford to overlook. A national agenda is important, but state-level and district-level implementation requires a different mindset than “one-size-fits-all.”

The government’s reach and resources are great, but so are those of the private sector. Since the government cannot be expected to enforce the goals of RTE on its own, partnerships with local partners can be what make all the difference. The IDFC report notes some interesting recommendations from the education stakeholders, such as: private partners can run their own “parallel schools” to government schools in neglected areas; the government-NGO relationship should be institutionalized for maximum impact; and all alternative schools become formal “resource centers” to support – and even help run – nearby government schools. There needs to be a climate of more flexibility and openness for all education stakeholders to work together and find productive partnerships for impact.

This flexibility, however, cannot be allowed to persist without appropriate monitoring. The progress and outcomes of existing schools must be evaluated to better understand how beneficial they are to local communities. There may well be key lessons that can be imparted by non-government schools to help encourage the mission outlined by the RTE Act.

Conclusion

Education is an easy issue to rally behind, but when there are so many voices in the crowd, it may be difficult to detect the soundest solutions. The RTE Act is a significant piece of legislation, but how its requirements affect on-the-ground efforts towards universal education is unknown. The IDFC report states a singularly valid question when it asks whether the requirements of the Act are necessarily in the best interest of all children.

What is apparent, though, is that PPPs offer the most amenable, current solution to the education sector’s needs. There seems to be a fundamental issue of non-coordination and non-utilization of all resources available to the Indian government – central, state and local – and to the sector as a whole. Instead of a discussion about removing non-compliant, non-recognized institutions, it may be more worthwhile to discuss the roles they can play in pushing forward the mission of universal education. Though the government is a powerful entity, it can use all the help it can get to make the RTE a success for all its current, and future, students.

Sources:

http://www.idfc.com/pdf/report/2012/Chapter_9.pdf

http://www.nios.ac.in/departmentsunits/academic/open-basic-education-(obe).aspx

http://pratham.org/images/Aser-2011-report.pdf