Papers by Shubhagato Dasgupta
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
Social Innovations in Urban Sanitation in India
Land
Local government partnerships for producing services are ubiquitous in many countries. However, t... more Local government partnerships for producing services are ubiquitous in many countries. However, the approach has rarely been applied in India—likely owing to a history of centralized planning and independent urban and rural governance systems. Nonetheless, the country’s transforming sanitation landscape could benefit from intergovernmental partnerships for scaling services with speed and efficiency. The ongoing national sanitation program has espoused the approach in theory but the body of practice to support its wide deployment is sparse. This paper critically reviews one of the first experiments with the approach for producing sanitation services in the Dhenkanal district, Odisha, India. We ask the question: what can Dhenkanal’s case tell us about the challenges and opportunities for delivering sanitation services through local-level intergovernmental urban–rural partnerships in India? As part of our practice research, we supported the district government pilot the approach. The d...
Environment and Urbanization ASIA
Meeting the sanitation needs of a growing and urbanizing population in India led the incumbent na... more Meeting the sanitation needs of a growing and urbanizing population in India led the incumbent national government to launch a large-scale sanitation programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014. Having reduced the deficit in basic rural sanitation in its first phase, the programme is targeting to achieve universal safely managed sanitation in its second phase launched in February 2020. Since the trajectory to achieving safely managed sanitation is inherently path-dependent, the present article utilizes novel survey data from rural India to understand the nature of sanitation systems in transitioning spaces and identify the investments they require to provide safely managed sanitation. It finds that the de facto preference in sanitation systems that households manifest is in direct contrast to the governmental choice of the low-cost twin pit system. The choice of the on-site sanitation system is informed by the household’s economic status and how ‘characteristically’ urban the settl...
The discourses on rural and urban spaces in India in the context of physical infrastructure have ... more The discourses on rural and urban spaces in India in the context of physical infrastructure have revealed their inherent characteristic differences. However, given the trends of urbanisation in India there has been a paradigm shift in the rural-urban continuum manifested in, amongst other things, planning, production and provision of public and private infrastructure. This research explores the secondary data on sanitation infrastructure in large dense villages in India from three census datasets. The analysis undertaken in the study attempts to comprehend the prevalence of improved on-site sanitation facilities in selected villages found to be proximate to urban areas and national highways. The findings of the research highlight the state-wise variations in large dense villages which account for sizeable percentages of the respective state populations and depict a generally high preference for septic tanks and improved pits. The results of the study substantiate the need for a primary survey to instruct policymaking adequately on the indispensability of decentralised strategies to improve the sanitation value chain. This study is the first in this area of examining the distribution of different on-site systems being used in rural areas in India, while trying to pose questions such as: Are Large Dense Villages (LDVs) facing special sanitation circumstances? Are LDVs sites for special sanitation focus? It aims to lay out the state of this play through an analysis of the Census 2011 data to help sharpen questions around the need for a more discerning view on states and locations where there is an increased use of septic tanks. This requires the government to consider the risks and options for treatment of the faecal sludge generated in these geographies. Can an integrated sanitation strategy for LDVs be drawn up? This exploratory study takes a look at this issue beyond CTs alone and establishes a category of Large Dense Villages (LDVs) as explained below, before analysing some principal parameters that seem to impact the on-site sanitation arrangement penetration.
This working paper presents the proceedings of an international workshop on water policies, held ... more This working paper presents the proceedings of an international workshop on water policies, held on January 2016 in (Delhi) and brought together 25 participants. It was supported by a number of partners (Centre for Policy Research, Centre de Sciences Humaines, Institut Francais of Pondicherry, UMI i-GLOBES CNRS/University of Arizona, ANR ENGIND, ANR BLUEGRASS, Indo French Water Network et Institut de recherche pour le Developpement). The research focused on comparisons between different case studies in a range of countries (USA, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Mexico, France and India), adopting an approach situated at the crossroads of geography and sociology. This international dimension proves particularly appropriate for a study of ‘water regimes’ as is consubstantial to their development: beyond the models often identified as “national’, from the 19th century onwards, we can identify rationales of transfer involving knowledge, expertise, skills and trained agents. From the beginn...
The paper describes the estimation exercise, i.e. the Urban Infrastructure Per Capita Investment ... more The paper describes the estimation exercise, i.e. the Urban Infrastructure Per Capita Investment Cost estimation and projection of urban finance requirements for the period 2006-2031 referred to as the 2006-2031 Urban Infrastructure Finance Estimation Exercise (2006-2031 UIFEE). The 2006 – 2031 UIFEE is special as it the first one in more than a decade of its nature, covering all urban infrastructure sectors. These new estimates covering the period 2006-2031 will add on to the Rakesh Mohan Committee estimates that projected investment requirements till 2006. This estimation exercise is unique as compared to the earlier estimation exercises for a host of reasons including the level of granularity of the projections and its reliance on real project data, which has been appraised by a variety of expert institutions. The demand driven nature of the projects also ensure that the projects are essential to the requirements of the citizens.
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Papers by Shubhagato Dasgupta