Delhi government forms committee to ensure sanitation in slums

The Delhi government has formed an advisory committee to frame guidelines to ensure sanitation in slum clusters and resettlement colonies.

The committee, which has been asked to submit its report within a month, will prepare guidelines after holding consultation with various concerned agencies and departments.

Senior official in Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board S K Mahajan said this on the sidelines of a workshop to address issues relating to urban sanitation so as to ensure effective implementation of the "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" (Clean India campaign).

Representatives of various government agencies and community level leaders working on the issue of sanitation took part in the discussions

Welcoming the initiative of the government, Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) executive director Akhila Sivadas said, "While we welcome the initiative of the government we felt that the grassroots organisations should share their years of experience working in this field with the government which will go on to strengthen the scheme." Representatives of various slum clusters complained of lack of maintenance of public toilets in their settlements.

They also complained of absence of sewerage line to which Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials replied that "only 55 per cent of Delhi's total area is covered by sewerages network at present."
"Although we are working on a war footing to bring more areas under its coverage, unplanned growth of certain areas often makes it technically unfeasible to extend sewerage lines which requires digging deep," said Sanjan Cheema of DJB.

The issue of manual scavenging was also touched upon during the course of the discussion.