Yamuna Basti

Community Composition: Comprises mostly of migrants from Bihar, UP and West Bengal. The settlement is largely a Muslim neighborhood.

General Description: The settlement is divided into 3 parts, Jogabai, Zakirnagar and Batlahaus. There is a mix of jhuggi jhopdis as well as small 1 storied brick houses which are near the banks of the river. The rest of the settlement is a more affluent bunch who live in multi-storied houses and apartment buildings, but all of them are ‘unauthorized’. The people in the JJ on the banks live under the fear of demolition and even though some of them attempt to build toilets the police break it down if they are not paid a bribe. There is a stark difference in the living conditions between the people living in JJ and the ‘pucca’ houses even though their legal tenure is similar. There are no samitis or mandals here. There have been no activities in the area by NGOs to work on any issues. There is a school that has been started by the former ambassoador to Oman and is known as ‘Oxford Square’ where the aim is to train slum children to become IAS and IPS officers. Though the school doesn’t talk about toilets or sanitation directly there are lessons on cleanliness everyday. The river floods every monsoon for 2 - 3 days at which point the JJ residents are moved to tents set up on dry land by the govt. There are no sanitation facilities provided even then.

Sanitation Situation: Most people in the JJ defecate on the banks of the river. Some of them have built Ventilated Pit Latrines in their houses, and since most of them have built them recently do not know what will happen when it fills up. The ground water level is very high as the settlement is on the banks of the Yamuna and the land is basically reclaimed land. There is an understanding on part of the residents that the water in the pit seeps out and goes back to the river through the ground but do not realize that that is how disease might spread. The people in the pucca houses have private toilets that feed into a main sewage line that was put into place by the local councillor on the pretext of pulling the sewage line from the friends colony to the yamuna for efficient dumping of sewage.

Top Reasons to Choose This Location/Unique Aspects: 1 . The location is on the banks of a river and there are large open spaces to try pilots

where we are actually setting up simple sanitation facilities. 2 . Because of the wide range of housing that is available, it would be interesting to see the

differences or similarities between residents of both. 3 . Since the JJ settlement is smaller/more compact it would be interesting to base our

detailed study and pilots there.