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Urban Political Ecology in Megacities: The Case of Delhi’s Waste Water

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Urban Development Challenges, Risks and Resilience in Asian Mega Cities

Part of the book series: Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences ((AGES))

Abstract

Megacities in Asia face tremendous environmental challenges. One of these is the drainage and treatment of waste water—a problem which ironically grows when access to water supply and water-borne toilets improves, leading to increasing per capita water consumption as well as water pollution. In Delhi, the overall waste water problem is huge with an estimated 1,800 million litres per day being disposed of without treatment in the Yamuna river. However, the various residential areas differ greatly in the magnitude of related problems they face. This inequality leads to a situation where mostly informal settlements have to bear the brunt of exposure to waste water. Against this background, this chapter investigates which waste water-related services informal settlements receive, who is providing them, and how residents struggle on a daily basis to obtain them. The case discussed here is of an informal residential area, or JJ cluster, in West Delhi. To study the presented problematic the approach of Urban Political Ecology (UPE) is introduced. This approach looks at environmental problems in their relationships with social, political as well as economic dynamics and processes. In the last years, UPE has started opening up to a more thorough investigation of the role of everyday practices in the production of uneven urban environments. Looking into the day to day interactions of residents with different state actors in the attempt to solve waste water-related problems allows furthering this avenue. By doing so, the chapter aims to contribute to a better understanding of how unequal urban environments are produced in today’s megacities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As the research for this paper has taken place between 2008 and 2010, the trifurcation of the MCD since December 2011 is not taken into account in the following.

  2. 2.

    This research has been carried out as a PhD project from the University of Bonn, funded by the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation.

  3. 3.

    The GoI Ministry of Environment & Forest & GNCTD Planning Department (2001) estimates even that only 55 % of the population are covered.

  4. 4.

    According to an MCD official, house numbers are usually multiplied by five to estimate the number of inhabitants; in that case the cluster counts around 4,430 inhabitants. On the 2008 voter list, it counted 2,221 voters.

  5. 5.

    Of course, in other cases, and if the focus of this paper had been on the toilet block, non-governmental actors would play an important role.

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Acknowledgements

An early form of this paper has been presented at the 30th Indian Geography Congress of the National Association of Geographers of India, Dec 19–21, 2008, University of Allahabad. I wish to express my thanks to the organisers for inviting me and providing me with helpful feedback. Further thanks go to the Heinrich Böll Foundation for funding my PhD in the course of which the presented data has been gathered.

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  1. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Anna Zimmer

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  1. Anna Zimmer
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Correspondence to Anna Zimmer .

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  1. University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    R.B. Singh

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Zimmer, A. (2015). Urban Political Ecology in Megacities: The Case of Delhi’s Waste Water. In: Singh, R. (eds) Urban Development Challenges, Risks and Resilience in Asian Mega Cities. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55043-3_7

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