Half of Hyderabad lives in poor state, 50 per cent of toilets yet to be constructed

Hyderabad: More than half the city lives in “bad” environmental conditions, according to a recent study that assessed the ward-wise environment quality in the 150 GHMC wards.

The researchers rated the wards in five categories from “bad” to “very good”. Only 12 wards were classified as either “good” or “very good” in terms of overall environmental quality.

As many as 85 wards were classified as “bad”. These wards with 30.5 people have 56 per cent of the city's population and cover nearly 192 sq. km.

The four “very good” wards were Yousufguda, Kishanbagh, Rahmath-nagar and Jubilee Hills, which cover 3 per cent of the city’s population and 20 sq. km area
The categories were based on a multitude of environmental parameters including air, water, solid waste and noise pollution apart from urban population, green cover, water bodies and relative entropy.

Hyderabad, Delhi are on par in open defecation
As per the recent National Sample Swachhta Status report, 29.2 per cent people in Telangana and 52.5 per cent in Andhra Pradesh defecate in the open.

The number of Individual Household Latrines constructed during 2014-16 was 29,523 in Andhra Pradesh and 14,065 in Telangana, which is much lower than those in most states. More than 50 per cent of the toilets for which applications were recei-ved are yet to be constru-cted in the two states.

In the Anganwadis in the two states, toilet construction remains much short of target, by 79 per cent in Telangana and 64 per cent in Andhra Pradesh.

While lack of enough toilets is a major hurdle, there are other reasons too behind open defecation. One is lack of knowledge on government schemes on provision of toilets. As per a study by the National Institute of Mental Health, the cities of Bengaluru, Hyderabad and New Delhi are on par, not in economic development or standard of living, but in open defecation. A similar proportion of slum dwellers in the two cities, 75-79 per cent, are still defecating in the open.

In Kolkata and Chennai the figure stands at 95 per cent, followed by Mumbai at 89.6 per cent. This is in spite of the fact that Mumbai and Kolkata have higher percentage of slums with piped sewerage system.

Even though more number of slums in Mumbai and Kolkata have piped sewerage system, 56 per cent and 53 per cent respectively, both cities have embarrassingly higher number of people who defecate in the open than Hyderabad where only 44 per cent slums have piped sewer connections.