| Background
In
consonance with its objective, SHARDA
joined hands with Ahmedabad Municipal
Corporation and SAATH, a local NGO to
improve the quality of life in slums,
chawls and other distressed areas. These
organisations launched the Slum
Networking Project in Ahmedabad in 1995.
The concept of Slum Networking was
developed by an Ahmedabad based
Structural Engineer Himanshu Parikh. The
project was successfully demonstrated at
Indore and Mr Parikh was awarded the
World Habitat Award for his contribution
in 1993 along with many national and
international awards.
Objective
The
objective of the project was to improve
the physical and social infrastructure of
the slum by providing good quality basic
physical infrastructure to the individual
households.
Top
Components
Physical
Infrastructure included
(1).
Roads and paving, (2). Individual water
supply, (3). Underground sewerage for
very house, (4). Storm water drainage,
(5). Street lighting, (6). Solid waste
management, (7). Landscaping,
Social
Infrastructure means
(1).
Setting up neighbourhood groups, women's
groups and youth activities. (2).
Mobilising community savings for
undertaking physical works. (3). Mounting
educational activities for pre-primary
age children, school dropouts, and
illiterate adults. (4). Launching
community health education and other
interventions related to mother and
child-care. (5). Supporting
income-generating activities by providing
vocational training, job accesses to the
unemployed persons. (6). Developing
linkages for formal sector finance to
help people start small businesses and
trades.
Top
Unique
Features
A
unique feature of the Project was that it
was a partnership between Ahmedabad
Municipal Corporation, business houses,
NGOs, and the residents of the project
areas, the true example of Public -
Private - Community Partnership.
Active
participation, including monetary and
otherwise, was the other distinguishing
mark of this initiative. Every household
in community shared one third of the cost
(rupees two thousand only) for upgrading
infrastructure facilities and the SHARDA
Trust and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation
shared the remaining two third (rupees
two thousand each). In addition, each
household contributed rupees one hundred
towards creating a community corpus for
maintaining the facilities. Therefore,
each household in the distressed area
participating in the project contributed
rupees two thousand one hundred for
upgrading and maintaining the facilities.
The
three partner organisations launched a
pilot project under the leadership of
SHARDA Trust, to test the feasibility of
carrying out the ideas of the Slum
Networking Project in Sanjay
Nagar, a slum in north Ahmedabad. The
work commenced on 5 August 1996 and was
completed on 19 April 1997, in just about
eight months.
Top
The
Profile of Sanjay Nagar
Sanjay
Nagar situated on a two-hectare,
triangular plot is bounded by major roads
on all three sides. There are 181
households in Sanjay Nagar with an
estimated population of about 1200. This
area had no basic infrastructure. It had
no underground sewerage, and paved roads;
facilities for drinking water were
woefully inadequate.
Top
The
Project Achievements
SHARDA
created good quality basic infrastructure
in Sanjay Nagar at low cost. The
following table gives a broad picture of
the infrastructure the project created in
the area.
Infrastructure
Created in Sanjay Nagar
|
