National Consultation: Path towards City-wide Inclusive and Responsible Sanitation Services in Uttar Pradesh-Discussion on model FSSM bye-laws & Economics of desludging services

Date: September 29, 2022
Venue: Galaxy II, Hotel Lineage, Lucknow
Time: 10:00-02:00 PM

Background

Current status- On 29^th July, 2022, the state-level workshop on the ‘Septage management to City-wide Inclusive Sanitation’ has indicated the status of the 62 FSSM projects in UP. Out of these 62, 58 projects were funded under AMRUT, 02 under Namami Gange and remaining 02 plants under ULB’s own fund (14/15^th Finance Commission). The focus of the state has shifted from construction of toilets to managing the faecal sludge generated therefrom and sustainable operation & maintenance of these projects. There are 22 cities (as of May 2022) and plants where physical progress has been more than 90% and some of them are ready to treat faecal sludge. More and more cities are also approaching towards full physical completion status. However, only 03 towns out of these 62 cities have either passed FSSM bye-laws or done gazette notification of it.

The cities in UP have attained ODF status and majority of the properties now have lined containment structure. These containment structures require desludging and the service is provided by either private players or respective ULBs. The business of desludging has both financial and environmental impact. The desludging cost varies from ULB to ULB and in most cases there is no regulation on the private desludgers. Formal tie-up of these private operators with the ULB can lead to a more sustainable desludging services mechanism which can benefit both the operator as well as the ULB.

In order for the FSSM projects in the ULBs to function at optimal level, FSSM bye-laws are crucial component and within this one of the important components is to fix the desludging fees which is affordable to the household owner as well as profitable to the private operator.

Context

CSE is currently doing research to understand the economics of desludging in the UP context where we are trying to understand the current scenario in terms of role of private and govt. desludgers, current desludging mechanism, the costs incurred by users for desludging etc. and CSE is also working on developing a model FSSM Bye-laws for the ULBs of UP.

UP as a state has the scope for issuing advisory to the ULBs on preparing FSSM Bye-laws and determining appropriate costs for desludging at the ULB level keeping in mind various segments of the society having different socio-economic background.

Objective 

With this background and context, a workshop is proposed at Lucknow to share the findings of the economics of desludging and model FSSM bye-laws to take the FSSM journey forward. The specific objective of the workshop would be: 

1. To share the findings of the research studies
2. Knowledge exchange based on other states experience and government perspective
3. Review and input from the sector experts