Chapter 10. India

The demand-supply gap in infrastructure became evident with the initiation of economic reforms in 1990. There are complex political arrangements around infrastructure in India’s 29 states and seven union territories. Growth in the provision of infrastructure has grown markedly in the past 30 or so years. Two cases are considered. The first case concerns solid municipal waste management. In the mid-1990s, “Diamond City” (pseudonym) faced a health crisis because of poor management of municipal solid waste. Since then, municipal solid waste management became a focus area of improvement for the urban local body of Diamond City (ULB-CD). ULB-CD started using an “unbundling” approach for MSW management. By contrast, “BEATLE City” (pseudonym) is the capital of a north-eastern state in India, which has witnessed a rapid increase in population since 2005 and has become the largest metropolis in the northeast of the country. Urbanization has been the increased generation of municipal solid waste. The municipal corporation of BEATLE (ULB-BEATLE) is an urban local body responsible for municipal solid waste management. Deficiencies across all components of the municipal solid waste supply chain were evident: primary collection and transportation, secondary transportation, processing, and disposal. There were limited door-to-door collections of municipal solid waste, lack of secondary collection points and processing facilities, and unscientific dumping of municipal solid waste in low-lying areas. ULB-BEATLE used a public-private partnership that did little to improve the situation.