UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE : Water system in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

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Water system in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

Image source: Primary survey

Shodhan Lake, Faizal Nagar

Note: To protect the privacy of certain individuals the names and identifying details have been changed.

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Ahmedabad being the fifth most populous city in India and thriving in development has seen an increase in informal agglomeration over the years. However, an uncontrolled increase in population coupled with illegal encroachments around water bodies has led to disappearance of lakes and contributes to an ongoing water crisis endured by the city every year. Despite the negative impact that such a recurring water crisis beholds on the population, it still stands as an issue often neglected by the authorities. A case in hand would be of Faizal Nagar, a small neighbourhood in Bombay Hotel which finds itself cropped up in the south eastern periphery of Ahmedabad. The primary source of water for the neighbourhood is the water extracted from the borewells. Although there exists a natural water body, it does not serve as a direct source of water but instead recharges the aquifer. Over the years, this water body is being polluted which in turn leads to the contamination of groundwater on which the neighbourhood is heavily dependent.

Thus a vicious spiral of doom sprawls itself in front of the people of Faizal Nagar.

This case intends to highlight the daily exploitation and struggle of people in Faizal Nagar where despite the presence of water, its contaminated state makes it unfit for human consumption. It investigates issues like exploitation, inequitable distribution and potability of water. Now though there have been studies in this area, it will be useful to highlight the contamination cycle to better understand the impact of the same on the lives of people in the area. This study would thus help in formulating and understanding a sensitised approach through which management of water distribution and protection of water source can be undertaken in such areas.

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

EVOLUTION OF FAIZAL NAGAR In Gujarat, 2002 was the year when the state broke into ruins socially. This is when some communities resorted to the peripheries of Ahmedabad. ‘Bombay Hotel’ is one such locality which is located in an industrial area with various chemical and textile industries on its periphery and is enclosed by Narol Road towards the east, Pirana Dumping Ground on the west and the Sarkhej- Narol highway towards the south. The area also consisted of three water bodies in the past.

Much before riots divided the city, the area where Bombay Hotel is now was brought into the jurisdiction of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Bombay Hotel is in the AMC’s South Zone and majority of its land comes under the Behrampura municipal ward. The area is further subdivided into six small neighbourhoods covering approximately 1 square kilometre of land and houses around 25,000 Muslim families.

Despite being taken under the AMC’s jurisdiction in 1975, the area has seen continuous delays in the town planning scheme. Absence of a formal water supply network has set up a base for the informal networks to intervene and takeover. Thereby, informal intervention of the private builders has led the Bombay Hotel area to develop haphazardly and has thus contributed to a lack in basic infrastructure for water supply in the neighbourhood.

Context around Faizal Nagar

Image: Google earth, Data source: Primary survey

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

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“To fill water in drums we need to hire an auto for Rs.50 which is why people walk 2-3 kms to fill buckets which becomes a difficult task daily.”

-SALIMA, a resident of Faizal Nagar

“We were out for 10-15 days and the borewell owner cut our water supply. After we came back we had to plead him to give us supply as no other supplier was ready to give us water” -MUSKAN, resident of Faizal Nagar

ZOOMING INTO FAIZAL NAGAR Faizal Nagar, one of the six settlements of Bombay Hotel has always been devoid of a primary source of water. Nearby industries with deep borewells provided some temporary relief to the residents.

However, the collection of water from the industries was a tedious task as residents had to walk long distances. Salima, a resident of Faisal Nagar described the situation in so many words “To fill water in drums we need to hire an auto for Rs. 50 which is why people walk 2-3 kms to fill buckets which becomes a difficult task daily.” To ease this situation an option of water supply running amongst the neighbourhood was sought by the residents. Hence digging of private bore wells was opted as an alternative. Residents / Institutions who could bear the cost of digging private borewells started a network of selling water to those who didn’t have access, thereby creating a power disparity with respect to access of water in the area.

WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT EXPLOITATION! Water suppliers in the neighbourhood are private borewell owners.

They are either residents or religious institutes (mosque) who own a borewell inside their property and supply water in their neighbourhood area. The extent of water that can be supplied through a borewell is decided based on its capacity to extract groundwater and on the basis of how the private borewell owners have negotiated amongst themselves. The infrastructural constraints restricts these borewell owners to certain lanes and these lanes thus mark their area of control, leaving residents with no choice of changing their supplier. As is the case with every situation of a power imbalance, these borewell owners often act arbitrarily and the residents are left at their whims and fancies. Muskan said “We were out for 10-15 days and the borewell owner cut our water supply.

After we came back we had to plead him to give us supply as no other supplier was ready to give us water” To get water supply, residents have to contribute Rs. 1,000-1,500 for the installation of infrastructure. Further the monthly charge for continuing the water service is around Rs. 200 - 300. In addition to this, whenever a bore well breaks down, the owners ask the residents to contribute for the repairs. Rasidda, a resident, in an agitated tone states that “ We have already contributed money three times in this month for repairing the borewell apart from the monthly charge. We can’t keep spending like this every month.”

Apart from paying these excessive amounts to the suppliers, the residents also have to endure certain accessibility problems. Whenever the borewell breaks down or there is a shortage throughout the lane, the residents are forced to call the private tankers. However, it only

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UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

stops at certain easily accessible points like locations that have roads laid or on junctions. On these points near the tanker, long queues of residents form, which often leads to extensive fights.

Data source: Primary survey

HOW IS THE WATER BEING DISTRIBUTED? Majority of the borewells dug around Faizal Nagar are utilised by their owners to supply water to others and also to satisfy their own household needs. However, some borewell owners do restrict the supply only to their own household.

The private suppliers supply water to different lanes which can be seen through the lanes being demarcated by the suppliers colour.

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

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Image source: Primary survey

In Faisal Nagar, on an average, one borewell of around 150-200 ft deep is utilized to supply water to 3-4 lanes which covers approximately 200 households. In order to distribute it amongst the residents throughout the neighbourhood, the water is pumped out of the borewell using a 75 horse power three phase submersible pump which reaches the valves thereby further regulating the release of water in each lane. Residents further connect a collectively bought rubber pipe to this valve and collect the water in the containers kept in their houses.

A street in Faizal Nagar with drums outside their houses to store water.

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IS THE WATER RECEIVED SUFFICIENT? Even though an intact informal network has taken over the charge of providing water, the residents are still unable to get adequate amount of water daily. They are often met with shortage of water as each household receives water for not more than 10 minutes and only on alternate days. One reason is that within an area of 19 acres, 19 borewells have been dug! This thus means that many of these borewells are congregated close to each other. This usually leads to the borewells of lower depth extracting less water since the borewells of comparatively higher depth placed nearby can extract more water.

This is why the residents dependent on the lower depth borewell receive less water at times and thus have to compromise on their needs.

Another factor contributing to this irregular supply of water can be attributed to multiple valves being attached to the same borewell at the same time. Owners do this to save electricity expenses as the

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

pump is used for a lesser amount of time when more valves are attached to the same borewell. This divides the water flow thereby leading to less water being available to each lane. Therefore, the choices at infrastructural level made by the borewell owners impacts the residents who are at the receiving end of the system.

IS THE WATER POTABLE? A crucial feature of these private borewells is that they are not dug deep. They extract water from low levels which leads to the residents receiving polluted water. Abdul bhai a prominent borewell water supplier said that, “The water that we get from the borewell has chemicals, colours, and various other harmful elements in it.

Out of all the borewells that operate here none of them supply potable water.” To which Shabana ben a resident of Faizal Nagar, adds, “Simply by drinking water, kids here suffer from diarrhoea, vomiting and often have to be rushed to the hospital” The water received by the residents is stored by them in a drum.

Over a period of time, a white layer forms on top of it. Ansar Bhai says “ When we store water a for longer duration a layer of salt (kharash) can be seen on its surface.” This indicates that the quality of water received by the residents is unfit for drinking.

WHY IS THE WATER UNFIT FOR CONSUMPTION ?

About Shodhan Lake Amidst the dense neighbourhood lies a water body called the Shodhan lake. The lake stands still behind a board which states that it has been sold to private developers. However, in recent times, this lake’s area has decreased from 17,322 sq meters in the year 2000 to 8764 sq meters in 2018 (As calculated from Google Earth). It has drastically reduced by more than 50% than what it was earlier. Pri-mary stakeholders responsible for this can be the AMC, residents of the Faizal Nagar and the private developers.

Even though this lake does not receive due importance at the city level but it is still crucial for recharging the groundwater as the quality of water in the lake impacts the groundwater beneath.

“Simply by drinking water, kids here suffer from diarrhoea, vomiting and often have to be rushed to the hospital” -SHABANA BEN resident of Faizal Nagar

Shodhan lake’s periphery

Image source: Primary survey

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

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HOW IS THE QUALITY OF WATER IN THE LAKE? The Shodhan lake despite being a recharger of the groundwater, undergoes tremendous exploitation at the hands of the various stakeholders involved. Some of these include direct release of sewage and industrial waste into the lake. The absence of a garbage collection system has forced the residents to dump their waste into the lake, hence contaminating and filling it over time. Apart from the residents, private developers in the area also exploit the lake by dumping their construction waste in it. These developers are now trying to convince the residents to fill up the lake so that more houses can be built on it. The residents also seem to be convinced by this approach as they believe that the lake is the reason for the unhygienic condition of the neighbourhood. However, the short sightedness of this approach is that it will worsen the water crisis being faced by the residents: it will prevent the water from being recharged to the aquifer below, thus leading to a decrease in the level of groundwater, which forms the primary source of water supply to the residents.

“The area consisted of three talavdis (lake) one near RM pan shop, other small lake near Faisal Nagar and the third one is Shodhan, lake out of which the first two have been filled up.”

-ASLAM BHAI local leader in Faizal Nagar

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Apart from this, overflow from the drainage system becomes an issue as it seeps and settles in the low lying areas of the lake. This issue then needs to be resolved with help from the AMC. However, by the time AMC comes to the rescue, the water already seeps inside the ground and begins to contaminate the aquifer below. Another factor that can be attributed to the contamination is the Pirana dumpsite. Pirana Dumpsite is where the garbage of the entire city of Ahmedabad is dumped and is only about a kilometer away from the neighbourhood. Now since the dumpsite was not developed as a scientific landfill site, the leachate release from the waste can easily seep into the ground and lead to the contamination of the groundwater in the nearby areas.

If exploitation continues at this rate, the lake is very likely to get filled like the other water bodies in Faizal Nagar and add to the existing horrid state of water supply in the area.

Aslam Bhai, a local leader in the neighbourhood says “The area consisted of three talavdis (lake) one near RM pan shop, other small lake near Faisal Nagar and the third one is Shodhan, lake out of which the first two have been filled up.”

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

Image source: Primary survey

STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED The NGO - Center for Development (CFD) had been working extensively with the locals in Faizal Nagar for their empowerment by mobilizing them and making them aware about their rights. They have prepared an advocacy group that raises the issues faced by the residents and takes it forward to the local leaders, politicians and AMC. CFD along with other institutions has done an extensive research on highlighting and bringing out the exploitation faced by the people here. When asked about the lake and Salim Bhai one of the members from CFD said that, “The lake is filthy because of the waste dumped in it. The land mafia network that operates here have covered almost half of the lake.” when asked about their take he said, “We have also done advocacy several times for the lake but haven’t been successful to get any outcome” He also added, “It is the responsibility of the state and the local authority to provide basic amenities to the citizens. Out of the entire budget allocated to AMC a certain amount is sanctioned for the development of socially and economically backward group which is not utilised for the same and is used in various other corrupt practices.”

The residents often turn to local leaders in the neighbourhood in case of some problem. These leaders act as mediators between the residents and the concerned authority. They mobilise people towards a certain issue and with their contacts help them to come to a solution.

Garbage being dumped on Shodhan lake’s periphery by the residents.

“It is the responsibility of the state and the local authority to provide basic amenities to the citizens.

Out of the entire budget allocated to AMC a certain amount is sanctioned for the development of socially and economically backward group which is not utilised for the same and is used in various other corrupt practices.”

-SALIM BHAI

member of CFD

UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad

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Local leaders have put and are still putting a lot of efforts to get government water supply to the neighbourhood so that the residents get potable drinking water and are free from the exploitation of the private borewell owners. In regards to this, AMC has dug a 1200 feet borewell that is capable of providing potable water in the neigh-bourhood. However not all pipes are laid out. Till now only a few lanes have received government water supply. The future of the Shodhan Lake however seems unsure as private developers, who claim to have bought the lake, are constantly urging the residents nearby to keep filling the lake.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN? Cities often concentrate on the water bodies which are iconic for them and tend to neglect the other smaller ones. They fail to acknowledge the fact that these smaller bodies serve as a recharger to the existing ground water system and thus have the potential to impact the lives of people who depend on it. Contamination and pollution of water bodies on the surface is easily noticed, however there is more than what meets the eye. This contaminated water often seeps underground which is then extracted by us thereby affecting our health indirectly. The environment thus in this manner tries to tell the humans: you reap what you sow.

Protection of sources of water and management of water distribution has to be a collaborative effort from all the stakeholders. Here each stakeholder needs to take responsibility for its actions and prioritise collective interests over their personal ones.

Reference Video: https://youtu.be/2cju7LthK84

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UNCOVERING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE: Water System in Faizal Nagar, Ahmedabad