Table of ContentsIntroductionLife in Mumbai's SlumsMultitudeEarly Rehabilitation of SlumsAccess Granted - ProgressLegal Barriers to Access to Water in Mumbai's SlumsHuman Rights Issue man - Lack of implementation of government policiesIntroductionClean water is an integral resource for all ecological aspects of the world. Whether it is used for domestic purposes, for aquaculture, for industrial purposes, for irrigation, livestock or electricity, it is essential to sustain life. Around the world, the water used every day in homes, businesses, and public facilities is fresh water, and even though seventy-one percent of the Earth is water, only three percent of that water is soft. Of these three percent, almost sixty-nine percent of this clean water is almost inaccessible. This leaves Earth with one percent remaining of water that is considered surface water. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Fresh water, which makes up less than three percent of the Earth, is responsible for its cycle in the atmosphere and its return to providing clean water for the planet. world to use for bathing, cooking and drinking. There are four important characteristics for quantifying the condition of drinking water: reliability, quantity, quality and cost. Various national agencies, such as the World Health Organization or WHO, have drinking water quality standards, which specify the acceptable characteristics of safe and clean drinking water. Fresh water is so important, but its sources are often scarce due to the irregular and uneven distribution of water supplies. The quality and quantity of water sources often vary by season, year, and location, leaving some areas of the world with a dry river bed or an abundance of contaminated water. Additionally, contaminated water can come from chemicals and human and animal waste, all of which harm the quality of drinking water. “Polluted water is not only dirty, it is deadly.” Every year, around 1.8 million people die from diarrheal diseases such as cholera. A few tens of millions more people are seriously ill from other water-related illnesses. Over the course of several decades, water has become a commodity, allowing communities with inadequate distribution systems and low-income families to lack the ability to access this vital resource. Faced with the inequity of water distribution around the world, the United Nations believes that access to drinking water is a fundamental human right. If the global community takes action to create equitable distribution and access to clean water for water-poor communities, the ongoing cycle of poverty can be ended. India: People in India are facing a fresh water crisis, and in 2016, seventy-six million people did not have access to safe drinking water. Twenty-one percent of the illnesses the population suffers from are linked to unsafe water. , thus causing the death of 329,000 children under the age of five from diarrhea in 2015. While the lack of access to drinking water most directly affects the health of the population, it also affects the national economy as an estimated US$160 million in income is lost each year due to women missing work days to fetch and transport water from distant water sources. The population of India as a whole does notdoes not suffer from water crises, but particular areas of the country are rather affected. In some areas of the country, there are booming industries and capital-filled cities, while other areas embody rural neighborhoods and poverty-filled fields. Mumbai in particular is the country's most populous city and economic capital, but almost half of the population lives in slums and faces the challenges of a looming water crisis. Life in Mumbai's slums Many residents of Mumbai, a city located in the western state of Maharashtra, are challenged with lack of access to clean water and sanitation. With more than half of its residents residing in informal settlements, some estimates claim that Mumbai has the largest slum population of any city in the world. Because the men, women and children who live in this impoverished state face challenges related to water crises, they also experience short- and long-term hardship. In particular, lack of access to water and sanitation disproportionately affects women. and young girls. While men work, some women and children must obtain water from taps of other community sources. They often face the physical strain of rolling filled barrels of water up to two kilometers before returning home. This water collection process can sometimes take two to three hours a day, reducing the time children are in school or expected to do homework. In turn, children do not receive the education they need because they face the consequences of living without access to clean water. Women often lack water to wash their children, dishes, household spaces and clothes, sometimes leading to water saving and reuse. Furthermore, they also suffer in terms of sanitation and hygiene, as men are usually given priority over water in order to be properly prepared for work. Work is extremely important to men because their work earns what little money they can use. to spend on food or water. In these slums, we often find informal water distributors who charge exorbitant rates and practice discriminatory prices. Money from households is collected by these distributors who sometimes do not deliver the expected quota of water and abuse residents who have difficulty paying. The informal water supply system imposes extreme stress on slum dwellers, especially when distributors become angry and freely destroy the remaining water infrastructure around their community. During severe water shortages, women often find themselves in a situation where they must choose between spending their last remaining amount of money on food or water. Some residents stay awake all night to avoid water shortages that can occur in the middle of the night. Sometimes tankers enter the slums to provide additional water, but this periodic water is perceived to be of very poor quality. Illness and death from unsafe water are particularly prevalent among the child population in slums. These poorer residential areas rely on informal water distribution systems, where water circulates in pipes surrounding landfills and is compromised by holes, possibly increasing the risk of waterborne diseases. Poor water quality is one of the world's leading causes of morbidity and mortality and a large part of its supplytakes place in the slums of Mumbai. Particularly during the monsoon season, water sources become overly contaminated and diseases skyrocket. Lack of access to sewer lines and hampered construction of sewer lines pose giant sanitation challenges. The vast majority of children and 14% of adults defecate in the open air, the source of a large part of the disease. These slums regularly experience epidemics of diarrheal diseases, dengue fever, malaria and leptospirosis. In the city, the conflict around the concern for accessibility to water hovers around the tensions between those who provide water and those who lack it. In peri-urban areas of Mumbai, problems related to lack of access to drinking water are most often linked to the slums themselves. Without access to a clean, well-structured house and without substantial money, slum dwellers must live in large abandoned buildings or even small handmade structures. The Maharashtra Slum Act defines a slum as an unsanitary, squalid and overcrowded area. It is a health hazard area and deemed unfit for human habitation. For a settlement to be deemed suitable for human life, it must include a water supply, drainage system and sanitation facilities, which most slums in Mumbai lack. Political issues regarding housing stocks and lack of resources to build houses have created a difficult situation for Mumbai residents living in areas without adequate water supply and sanitation.Multitude Early Slum RehabilitationDuring Over the past few decades, the Indian government's responses to slums have undergone several changes. The first response to the overwhelming slum population in the 1950s and 1960s was to demolish slum buildings and evict residents from the streets. However, the government has acquired a more tolerant attitude and adopted a different approach to handling the problems. In the 1970s and 1980s, the government enacted and adopted various laws and programs with the assistance of the World Bank and sought to improve the slums. Through the 1970 Slum Upgrading Program, the government planned to provide residents with basic services such as small footpaths, electricity, primary health care and education, as well as improved infrastructure with community water taps, latrines and adequate drainage. However, the scale of the programs and the assistance provided remained limited and could not prevent the proliferation of these living conditions. The following year, the Maharashtra Slum Act was enacted to give a firmer foothold to the fight against slum poverty. terms. Although this 1971 law brought more political progress for residents concerned primarily with land tenure, it did not provide much relief for the resources necessary for daily life. A section of the law deals with the need to provide water taps, bathing places, sewers and latrines, but this was an option. The government suggests "improvement works" in relation to slum buildings and only implies that one or more of the twelve changes, two of which are water and sanitation, are required. Although few changes were made to access to water and sanitation, the difficulties of living with minimal access to these basic amenities remained in people's lives for years. In the 1980s, government authorities devoted their attention and resources to the problem ofthe worsening of the then-named Bombay slums. 1985 brought a new slum upgrading target, this time for Dharavi, a locality home to almost a million residents, making it the largest slum in Mumbai as well as Asia as a whole . the commitment to intervene in slums, demonstrating that slum upgrading had indeed become a policy priority for Bombay. Initial plans for Dharavi called for a 40% population reduction, relocation of residents, construction of housing and complete reconstruction of its health infrastructure. However, slum upgrading laws and programs had had some success over the previous forty years, and the 1985 Prime Minister's Grant Scheme was no different. The government quickly declared that it was unable to carry out this complex plan, in part because of the opposition. within the colony. The National Slum Dwellers' Federation, PROUD and the Society for the Preservation of Regional Resource Centers managed to limit the transformation of Dharavi's slums and the 1985 PMGP had constructed only a few dozen residential buildings by the end of the 1980s. 1980. The failure of state interventions in slums reveals that basic sanitation, access to water and the provision of housing constitute a giant, interlocking conundrum. . In 1976, a new rule began to spread throughout the city, determining who would have access to basic necessities such as water and sanitation. After establishing a census of cabins on public property, “photopasses” were issued to all people whose accommodation met certain criteria and were eligible for a certain level of security. Different government agencies enabled engineering departments to recognize these slum dwellers and the residents were provided with electricity, sanitation, water and other small amenities. For the first time, those living in slums were not only recognized by the government, but also given what they had. were promised decades ago. Additionally, the World Bank-funded Bombay Urban Development Project and Slum Upgrading Program added leases to slum buildings in the mid-1980s. New land leases lasting 30 years Renewable resources were granted to cooperative societies and not only secured land, but also civic amenities. Although this new rule did provide a cost recovery basis and loans to support this upgrade, it was a step forward from previous policies and allowed some slum dwellers to access clean water and sanitation. sanitation. When residents learned about photopasses in 1976, population density in some areas increased because everyone wanted these special accesses. The government extended eligibility for these passes to more people, but it seemed that the slum problem was growing faster than ever. Soon, cutoff policies emerged that limited eligibility to a specific period. Over these decades, the politics of slum living have been increasingly dominated by "cutoff" policies, which promise free housing, water, electricity and sanitation to those who resided in slums before a certain date. The policy was adopted after slum dwellers, who constitute a large part of Mumbai's electorate, exerted a slew of pressure on the. ”