Topic: Environmental Determinants of Health Researchers: Kiran Sawant (PUKAR), Adriane Lesser (Harvard School of Public Health)Methods: In-depth semi-structured individual interviews (30), Focus Group Discussions (5)Population: Predominantly men, women, and youth of Kaula Bandar, with interviews in the registered slum of Dharavi for comparison. Preliminary Observations: An unregistered slum jutting out into the sea from Mumbai's eastern waterfront, Kaula Bandar has the distinction of being located on land belonging to the Bombay Port Trust. Because of this, Kaula Bandar does not receive the level of facilities and services provided to slums on Bombay Municipal Corporation land established before 2000. As a result, residents of Kaula Bandar face a unique set of challenges to their health and quality of life. In particular, this project has explored the environmental determinants of health operating in Kaula Bandar, with an emphasis on sanitation, hygiene, and water issues. Through interviews and focus group discussions, the researchers in this project have documented varied perspectives, perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors regarding these issues. The hope is that a better understanding of how residents of Kaula Bandar experience and react to their environment can inform recommendations for policy and action towards improved health in their community and others like it.
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July 15, 2009 : Water Shortage Disproportionately Affects Informal Settlements
Mumbai has been experiencing a severe city-wide water shortage this summer. A recent BBC article reports that it is among the worst water shortages in the city’s history, and the only acute city-wide shortage in living memory. To cope, the municipal government has reduced official supplies by 30%. Officials say the shortage stems from the late and intermittent monsoon rains this year, which feed the five principal lakes on which the majority of the city water supply depends.
Our ongoing research reveals that the water shortage is not affecting all city residents equally, but rather that those residents already experiencing routine water supply issues are being hardest hit by this summer’s drought. According to the BBC, the civic corporation has reduced the flow of water to swimming pools in Mumbai’s most prestigious hotels and clubs. Meanwhile, residents in the registered slum of Dharavi tell us that while they are used to getting two hours of metered water from their home taps each morning, these days their motors strain against the low water pressure to draw just half of that flow a day. The reduction in the amount and time of water flow can be especially stressful for single-member households already struggling to juggle filling their vessels at the allotted time with their long work schedule.
In contrast, the water shortage seems to be having a minimal impact on lifestyles in the decidedly upper-class suburb of Bandra West, where I am temporarily lodged. The luxury option of a high-pressure hot shower has remained available to me 24 hours a day. Only very recently, weeks into the shortage, did renters in my apartment building experience any inconvenience – the water to our private flush toilets (already a luxury not afforded to most in this city) was shut off. As water remains readily available, the alternative of filling a bucket to flush with hardly seems an equivalent sacrifice. Where is the municipality concentrating its 30% reduction in the water supply?
The situation is at its worst in unregistered slums like Kaula Bandar, where already inadequate informal water delivery systems have collapsed under the shortage. There are no taps in Kaula Bandar. Most residents purchase their water at high prices of about Rs 200-300/month (10% of the average household income) from a few local sellers lucky enough to have illegal connections to an old fire brigade pipeline. The sellers deliver the precious resource via fissured hoses that snake across the trash-strewn terrain and up from under the contaminated inlet alongside the dock that serves as both a dumping ground and an open toilet for the surrounding area.
(Cont.)
The impact of the water shortage on the Kaula Bandar community is immediately palpable. Most of the women and men we interview begin lamenting the disruption the shortage is causing them before Kiran and I manage to sit down and go through any formalities. Many households haven’t had water delivered for one to two weeks, forcing them to travel far distances to other water sellers charging exorbitant and often prohibitive amounts. As a result, households have had to cut back on basic measures of sanitation and hygiene, such as washing themselves, clothes, dishes, their homes, and lanes. People we talk to in Kaula Bandar report they are taking fewer baths and washing their clothes less frequently. As a woman we are interviewing gestures to the flies buzzing about the dirty dishes she has had to put off washing, young children crawl across the one-room home, dropping and picking up crackers off the floor that is being washed less frequently during the shortage.
In an environment already suffering from inadequate access to sanitation and hygiene facilities and services, the impact of the water shortage in the informal settlement has been to further reduce what little control its residents do have over maintaining their personal and household cleanliness (safai). Thus, we recognize the water shortage to be not just an additional health challenge for the community, but a further affront to their dignity, as well.
(Cont.)
The residents of Kaula Bandar often remark that the incidence of a variety of illnesses (such as diarrheal disease) increases during each monsoon season. With the water shortage in Mumbai making it even more difficult than usual for KB residents to practice good sanitation and hygiene measures, this monsoon season may pose even greater hardships to their health.
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