Integrated slum development of one town area in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh

Project Background:

Every sixth urban Indian lives in slums unfit for human habitation. Slums, in fact, are so common that they are found in 65 per cent of the Indian towns. Visakhapatnam is the largest city in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Situated on the eastern coastline of India, it is a significant port – second largest in India and industrial city which attracts thousands of migrants from the adjacent neighboring areas as well as pan India due to the available economic opportunities. As a result, over the past few decades the city has witnessed a considerable rise in population which mostly settled in its slums. According to Census 2011, Visakhapatnam under GVMC was identified as the city with the highest slum population in relation to its urban population i.e. 44.1 percent in the country. Most of these slums fall under deplorable environmental conditions, prone to various communicable and transmissible diseases, exhibit poor socio-economic standards and a dearth in basic infrastructural facilities.

The project envisages integrated approach involving efforts to provide safe and clean drinking water, sanitation, education, livelihood empowerment of youth and empower women by involving them in all developmental activities. The project locations are the six slums of 39th ward of GVMC namely Chilakapeta, Padmanagar, Ferry road, Ambusarang veedi, Kota veedi and Conveyor belt slums. AFPRO carried out the need assessment keeping the holistic development need of the community residing in six slums of 39th ward of GVMC, Visakhapatnam. The data was collected through Focus Group Discussion (FDGs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) in order to assess the need of the communities prior to planning interventions.

Project Objectives:

• To improve the educational infrastructure and enhance learning in students.
• To Improve access for clean drinking water and sanitation services for rural communities.
• To enhance health infrastructure, educate community on health issues and safe hygiene practices.
• To build the capacities of local institutions/CBOs (water user groups, Water & sanitation committee, SHGs, fishermen groups, Gram, Urban Panchayat etc.) for better living conditions, opportunities for development and sustaining interventions.
• To enhance the income of women by promoting Income Generation Activities (IGA).
• To empower the youth through training on soft skills and enterprise development.
• To organize trainings to improve the capacities of fishermen and support fishing equipment’s.
• To build environment awareness among the community.