Slum residents have better access to drinking water and electricity than their counterparts in the urban non slum areas, claims a report on ‘Housing Stock, Amenities and Assets in Slums’ released in the Capital on Thursday.
The report also says the number of slums in the country has declined.
The first-of-its-kind survey, based on Houselisting and Housing Census 2011 conducted by the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, has revealed that slum residents have most basic amenities like drinking water and electricity and even facilities like mobile phones, internet and private vehicles: the only service missing is sanitation.
Sample this. In urban areas only 70.6 per cent people have access to tap (drinking) water whereas in slums this figure is 74 per cent; similarly electricity is a source of lighting in 92.7 per cent (non slum) urban areas and slums come close with 90.5 percent.
“For the purpose of Census, slums were categorised and defined as notified slums, recognised slums and identified slums. For the first time all the 4,041 statutory towns [towns with municipalities] were covered and we found that only 2,542 have slums,” said A.K. Mishra, Secretary, Union Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation.
He said the census had helped the government get an accurate view of the slum numbers in the country, as the percentage of slums in urban areas was earlier assumed to be much higher than what has been revealed in the survey. “Earlier we thought in towns like Mumbai half of the population lives in slums, but now we know the figure is close to 40 per cent,” he said, adding: “In million plus cities, we thought there is a large concentration of slums, but now we know it is a manageable 38 per cent.”
The total Slum Enumeration Blocks (SEBs) in Census 2011 is about 1.08 lakh , with Maharashtra leading the number of slum dwellings at 21,359. As against 789 lakh households in the urban areas, the total number of households that live in slums is 137 lakh, the survey revealed.
A.P. tops the list
In 46 cities with a million plus population there are 38 per cent slum households: Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of slum households (35.7 per cent) followed by Chhattisgarh (31.9 per cent), Madhya Pradesh(28.3 per cent), Odisha (23.1 per cent) and West Bengal (21.9 per cent) while Delhi has just 14.6 per cent slum area. Kerala has the least number of slums (1.5 per cent).
Union Minister for HUPA Ajay Maken said though the number of slum households has come down from 23.5 per cent in 2001 to 17.4 per cent in 2011, there are still a large number of people — 68 million — who continue to live in slums.
Mr. Maken said : “The Ministry will not have any distinction between notified, recognized and identified slums while providing financial assistance to the States under the Rajiv Awaas Yojana ( RAY) Scheme. This is being done with the objective of bringing improvements in slums. Any identified slum in any city will be given money under RAY.”
A committee will also be set up for suggesting how to prepare a slum upgrading index for all cities, Mr. Maken said.
Keywords: Ajay Maken, Indian slum population, urban poverty
While the number of people living in slums is slowly going done, it is unimaginable that the governments do not provide any public or private toilet facilities to 18.9 % of slum dwellers that defecate publicly. Even after the film industry show in one movie that a child drown in feces and in another movie an old person eats his own feces,though exagerated, the governments have no heart to provide toilets to these poorest of the poor. The defecation in public is a major public health hazard and inhumane that the governments are not concerned while spending billions of rupees to send man in the moon.
Mr.ajay maken needs to be congratulated for the ever report on slums in india and placed it in public domain. We now have a base to start with. We also notice that many slum dwellers enjoy modern amenities like frig etc., slums are an inevitable consequence of modernization, specially in india where the middle class would prefer their day to day services to be provided to them on call eg., milkman, servant maid, istrywallah, mochi etc., unless this extravagance is curtailed urban slums will continue. Rural slums need to be studied further to find out the role of class divisions in society. However this is a good beginning. It is obvious mr. Maken is doing good work and hope he gets more time here.
we indians get what we vote for,
The need of the hour is another 500 well planned cities in India,
We protest a city like Lavasa, which is providing clean drinking water, sewrage
treatment, paved roads, proper footpaths, green cover, well designed town,
Whe one company takes an initiative we should empower it and make policies such that they can be replicated, not disempowered.
Oh come on now....they're lying as usual...68 million, my foot...it's got to be lot more. When one walks about in all major Indian cities, one sees nothing but slums, slums and slums !
If all the richest,richer & rich including giant software companies & business houses mobilise their resources,they can not only wipe out this 68 million ' have nots ' in this country & consequent violence happening partly on account of it. To achieve this global objective only on the basis of 'Each one reach one', the Messiah,Sri Sri Ravishankar is currently motivating everyone to unite & bind the whole humanity.Let everyone join hands with the Master to experience 'Vasudaiva kutumbam'.
The difference between slum dwellers of cities and middle are:a dwelling
that has more space/better finish and their pretensions to get a better
tag.An electrician,a collie,an auto driver,a plumber is likely to be
earning,legitimately or otherwise, more than ordinary middle class
household.
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