V. Devadas

Municipal solid waste management in Kanpur, India: obstacles and prospects

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to assess the existing state of MSW in Kanpur city with the aim of identifying the main obstacles to its efficiency and the prospects for improvisation of the solid waste management system in the city.Design/methodology/approach – The research has been conducted in three stages. The first stage involved collection of background information through various reports, publications of various organizations to understand the state of MSWM in the city, followed by interviews with various heads of the Municipal Corporation involved in SWM, municipal workers and residents of the city. Field studies were conducted in few wards of the city and official dump sites. The third stage involved conducting interviews with planning experts and representatives from NGOs to derive information on various SWM related problems and prospects for improvising the system.Findings – The existing solid waste management system in the city appears to be highly inefficient. Only primary and secon...

Assessing informal waste recycling in Kanpur City, India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline the socio‐economic and environmental implications of the informal sector engaged in waste recycling in the city of Kanpur, with special emphasis on the lives of lowest group of people, i.e. waste‐pickers, and to discuss various possible scenarios to integrate them with the formal sector.Design/methodology/approach – The study involved field survey of secondary material markets, followed by the administration of questionnaires to 40 respondents belonging to various segments of the informal sector. The questionnaires were designed to elicit information on the socio‐economic characteristics of the respondents. The study was conducted in 2004.Findings – The study has attempted to delve into the socio‐economic conditions of the waste and dump‐pickers, the lowest segment of the informal recycling sector. The study of the status of existing alliances of formal‐informal sector and the community shows that there is a lot of scope for improvement in the management o...

Role of Technology Management in Development

The governments and development agencies around the world have focused on achieving development by targeting on poverty reduction for more than two decades. Development, however, is multifaceted and goes beyond increases in income levels to incorporate human welfare by enhancing people’s choices and their substantive freedoms by providing both social and economic opportunities. While poverty is widespread in India, a study done by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative concludes that Uttar Pradesh state had the fifth last Multidimensional Poverty Index rank in 2007 in the Indian states having 69.9% of its total population living under poverty. Lucknow District, taken up as the study area, demonstrates that due to technological disparities, infrastructural lags and lack of economic and social opportunities in the rural areas, the city becomes a hub for immigration. Government with the help of private enterprises, management agencies and NGOs can directly aid the situation through technology management projects, targeted at the grass roots and then upscaled, that can be beneficial in enhancing income opportunities through capacity building and focused knowledge dissemination, resulting in standardised, consistent and quality production, while the intervention of the private sector for these setups can be utilised for infrastructure provisions against the profit incentives, thereby resulting in a better quality of life, higher economic choices and higher income levels of the rural inhabitants.

Urban Land Management: The Retrospect of Three Metro Cities in India

Indian economy has seen a boost in the past few years, impacting the metropolitan cities the most, but the pace of economic growth is not in a par with the functioning of the institutions and their services. This chapter attempts to determine the principal reasons, which are directly or indirectly responsible for the ailments like unplanned growth, inadequate supply of urban land and services leading to inefficient land management system in Indian metro cities. Three case studies have been chosen to demonstrate the difference between the superannuated conventional methods of land administration, which have been followed from the last many years since independence and the latest technological approach, which has been popular since the last decade. There is an effort to analyse the potential of technological tools and techniques as a solution to the problems inherited within the land administration.