Duration: August 2020 – June 2021
Status: Completed
Funder/ Partner: International Budget Partnership (IBP)
Cities have been regarded as the engines of economic growth and the top 10 cities together contribute about 1.26 trillion USD (PPP) to India’s GDP of 9.49 trillion USD (PPP). Experience has shown that urbanisation is a resultant of the increase in productivity and urbanisation in-turn shows an incremental progress in the product and labour markets, creates competition and enhances efficiency.
For cities to drive growth and sustain its productivity, urban services like water supply, sanitation, solid waste and other infrastructure become very critical. local governance is the subject of the state list envisaged in the 74th constitutional amendment. However, not all of the functions are devolved to the ULBs by the state governments. Even where it is devolved it is in part or with no adequate finances. The functioning of specialized parastatal bodies and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) has resulted in ULBs being largely confined to only core urban services.
Management of Urban Waste (including both sanitation and solid waste) is one of the important urban services that has a bearing on urban productivity and sustainability in the long run. The Sustainable development goals (SDGs) 6 and 11 also emphasize the importance of urban sanitation and SWM services.
The objective of the study is to understand how Urban Local Bodies (ULBS) implement sanitation and SWM services, to map the role of data, budget processes, governance structures and the roles and implications on both the frontline staff and citizenry. The study also intends to understand the interaction of the state government with the ULBS including the parastatal bodies in provisioning sanitation, to understand the role played by the ULBS in eradicating manual scavenging. and what could be the potential ways for the ULBS to fund sanitation and SWM services efficiently.