The Hindu Business Line : Cleaning versus cleanability

In several ways and at a comparatively small cost, it is possible to make cities cleanable, and even cleansed of crime. However, whether a city actually gets cleaned or not — the cleanabilty — depends on political will, says P. V. Ind iresan.

A cobbled stone road... They are repairable at virtually no cost, easy to maintain, and suitable for developing countries such as India.

INDIAN CITIES are not merely dirty; they are filthy. Mainly, that is because they are not cleanable. Cleaning is a matter of political will and managerial ability. Cleanability is a matter of technology.

In all our cities, the roads are full of potholes. Evidently, the way we build them, our roads are not maintainable. In contrast, there are 2200-year-old Roman roads and bridges that still carry modern motorised traffic.

Like many of our own old streets and modern day slums, Roman streets too are often narrow and meander haphazardly. However, they are built with cobble stones, stones that are relatively small in size, but are as deep as they are wide (or even deeper). The advantage of cobble stones may be understood by considering that a metre long stick can be broken with ease, but not when it is 10 centimetre long. Likewise, large slabs can break easily but not small cobble stones. During heavy rains, the soil base gets eroded unevenly, leaving the surface unsupported in places. Then, large slabs break; cobble stones do not.

Cobble stones are laid in sand, or in lean cement. Water can percolate through them, and hence gets distributed evenly. Even otherwise, if the base becomes uneven, one or two cobble stones may sink but none of them will break. It is a simple matter to prise them out, refill the sand and tamp them back into place. In other words, cobble stone roads are repairable at virtually no cost.

Contrast that with the situation when an asphalt or concrete road develops a pothole. The repair is a major exercise. Even estimating the cost is a controversial matter. Hence, complex checks and balances are adopted. The repair becomes even more an administrative hassle than a technological one. In consequence, the road remains unrepaired for a long time, if at all.

Admittedly, the ride on cobble stones is not as smooth as on asphalt, and not suitable for high speeds. Yet, in cities, where speeds in excess of 50 kmph are unwarranted, cobble stone roads are quite acceptable. That is why we see plenty of them in European cities.

Further, in Europe, streets are paved from end to end without open drains. In India, the streets have exposed drains as well as shoulders of mud. That invites the sweepers to sweep the dust and grime on to the bare soil, and push the garbage into the drain. In no time, wind will sweep all that muck back on to the street. Thus, cleaning our cities is like straitening a dog's tail.

In Roman streets, where the road is paved end to end, dust and garbage cannot be swept aside the same way; they will have to be removed once for all. That is a simple matter with present day mechanical sweepers, which are so efficient that even a city as large as Chennai will need no more than a hundred of them.

However, even mechanical sweepers become ineffective if cars are parked haphazardly. The British have a simple solution: on any day, cars are parked on one side of the street only, but on opposite sides on alternate days. The sweeper can then clean the side clear of vehicles without hindrance. Both sides get cleaned well but only on alternate days, which is adequate enough.

Yet another striking feature of Roman cities is the concern they show for pedestrians. Even narrow lanes have footpaths that are free of obstructions like trees, lamp-posts and encroachments over at least a metre width. As a thumb rule, about one-third of the street width is given over to pedestrians. If the street is too narrow, the whole street is made pedestrian. With slightly wider streets, even in residential areas, the streets are made one-way rather than two-way at the expense of pedestrians.

Our engineers take the name footpath literally. They make them a foot or more high, making it difficult to clamber to get on and off. European footpaths are barely ten centimetres high, easy to use. They are cleanable too.

Unlike in Western cities, 80 per cent of our garbage is composed of vegetable and other organic matter. Few people are aware that vegetables contain twice as much water as milk does. When such garbage is carted, we are mostly carting highly polluted water, often over tens of kilometres. Then, it would be worthwhile to remove the water content locally, and transport only the solid part of the garbage.

Gandhiji's biodigester technology is best for this purpose. Biodigesters operate under anaerobic conditions — without oxygen. Hence, they kill all air-breathing bacteria. When the slurry comes out and is exposed to the air, the anaerobic bacteria too, that thrived inside, die because oxygen is a poison for them. Thus the slurry is free of both aerobic and unaerobic bacteria. Hence, it is odour free, and safe to handle. Once, the slurry is filtered, the residue becomes compact. Thus, carting it costs much less both financially and environmentally.

Biodigesters can also be used to clean up sewage well enough to be recharged as groundwater. In addition, sullage water from the baths and kitchen may be passed through simple sand filters (with some alum added to flocculate the soap) to make it clean enough to be reused in toilets. After all, it is a sheer waste to use potable water to flush toilets! In all these ways, water availability can be raised several times, and thereby mitigate one of the most intractable problems in our urban management.

However, biodigesters require skilled maintenance, a factor that has not yet been properly appreciated in our country. Without specially trained personnel equipped with proper instrumentation, biodigesters become non-functional rapidly, particularly when loaded with sewage and urban waste.

Admittedly, there is no space in our crowded cities to add biodigesters. In this connection, it would be useful to borrow yet another town planning principle from the Romans. As a rule, street intersections in those ancient cities have large open spaces. In our country, the corner plot on any street is considered precious; people vie to build houses on such spots. The Romans were different; in their towns, street corners are set back to create a plaza. Like courtyards in our houses, the plaza acts as a ventilator, a ventilator to cool and clean the air for the entire neighbourhood.

If we too adopt the same principle, we will not only improve the ambience of our cities, we will also find enough space to place bio-digesters in each locality. Traffic safety too improves because, when corner plots are open, there will be no blind corners.

Most civic administrations in the country are corrupt and flourish because our municipal taxes are extortionate and evasion is easy. Even normally law-abiding citizens indulge in tax evasion when it comes to registration of property deeds. Often, they have no option but seek the help of hardened criminals to get rid of unwanted tenants. Such criminal elements will not normally allow the city to improve.

Neither more policing nor draconian regulation can check this criminality, only simpler taxation can. Few people are aware how powerful an effect the system of taxation has on urban design. For instance, for centuries, houses in England were built with practically no windows because there was a tax on windows. Even now, in older parts of Amsterdam, there are buildings several storeys high, 50-60 feet deep but only ten-twelve feet wide. Such a design became popular only because, in earlier days, house tax depended on the width of the building. (There is, actually, one large building in Amsterdam that is only one door wide!)

Once the tax system becomes simple and fair, most citizens would be happy to abide by the rules, and pay taxes honestly. That will cut the operating base of urban criminals who thrive only because tax evasion is profitable. Once we abolish tax on property, particularly Stamp Duty on real-estate transactions, many otherwise law-abiding citizens, who are now evading taxes, will free themselves, and their cities too, from the clutches of criminals. If Rent Control too is abolished, we will see a new dawn. Then, just as computerisation of railway reservation eliminated touts and their violent supporters, cities too will be rid of criminals.

The loss caused by these tax concessions can be made up by levying an entry tax on goods vehicles, say, one rupee per kilogramme of the carrying capacity whether the vehicle is loaded or not.

Unlike octroi, but like road tolls, such a tax will be easy to collect, and cannot be evaded. Hence, the city will get corruption-free income. That tax will also induce non-essential industries to shift from large cities to small towns, benefiting both of them.

(The author is a former Director of IIT Madras. Response may be sent to indresan@vsnl.com)

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