City fails to keep up with rise in slums

‘In the last three years, only 10,000 houses built every year, despite need for 50,000 per year’

In a city of apartments and towering blocks, will there be space left for its burgeoning slum dwellers?

A recently-released census has shown that the population of slum dwellers has gone up from 4.3 lakh to nearly 7.6 lakh.

However, with the influx of migrants – many of them seeking work in the booming construction sector or displaced as victims of agrarian distress –, the city striving to become “slum-free” in six years finds itself struggling to provide housing.

“We need to construct around 50,000 houses per year to house the urban poor. But in the past three years, we have managed just around 10,000 yearly,” says N.P. Balraj, technical director of the Karnataka Slum Development Board, adding that the housing was being undertaken at more than 20 km from the city due to the paucity of land.

In the previous budget of the Board, the central funding had come to a halt as the Ministry for Urban Housing re-jigged schemes that allowed for the construction of numerous houses.

Even the guidelines for the next budget may not solve the problem as the Union government’s subsidy has been capped at Rs. 1.5 lakh, leaving the State and the beneficiary to scrounge for the remaining Rs. 4 lakh for a 100 sq.feet house.

With a struggle for land in the city increasing, eviction and harassment of slum dwellers are on the rise, said experts gathered at a discussion on the urban slums here on Thursday.

Activist Kshitji Urs believes the State needs to remodel their policy for the urban poor on the lines of the recently-enacted legislations in New Delhi that prevents eviction or demolition of existing slums.

Supriya Roy Choudhary, researcher from the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), says their research has shown “scenes of complete stagnation” for slum dwellers as even with title deeds and houses, they are still deprived of better wages in the city.

Slums in the city

Identified slums: 618

Estimated 60 per cent on private land

Population in slums (2011 census): 7.6 lakh

Population in slums (2001 census): 4.31 lakh

Development of slums

Houses taken up for construction in the past three years: 30,746

Estimated date of completion of all houses March 2017

Estimated number of houses needed yearly for the city to be “slum-free”: 50,000

2011 census on slum households:

Number of houses: 1.78 lakh

No toilets in slum premises: 23,600

A recent study by the Public Affairs Centre shows slums contribute less than 4 per cent of the city’s economy

Majority of slum dwellers are drivers, domestic workers

In nearly a decade, the city’s growth has seen thousands of slum dwellers evicted with promises of “better” housing but most are yet to come to fruition.

In the city’s largest slum, a little more than three years ago, more than 5,000 people were evicted to make way for a large complex that includes premium residential apartments and a mall. “We were first promised housing in the area, and now they are giving us flats in Sulikunte (on Sarjapur Road), nearly 20 km away. We work as maids and daily-wage labourers in the area. We cannot afford to commute daily,” says Shanta, who now lives with her family in temporary tenements on the pavements nearby.

Residents of at least 12 slums across the State narrated tales of eviction and harassment at a public hearing here on Thursday.

The construction of the busy NICE expressway has seen large-scale evictions in at least two slums.

Evicted from Veerabhadranagar, numerous families now struggle to earn a living at Bheemanakuppe some 20 km away.

“At least 100 children had to leave their studies because of the forcible eviction,” says Siddaraju, a resident there.

Similarly, in the sprawling Pillaganahalli slum, near Gottigere, more than 2,000 families live in ramshackle conditions and remain cut-off from the city by the NICE road that encircles their colony.

The threat of eviction continues for many slums. In the past year, eight slums – with more than 1,000 households residing – in and around K.R. Puram area alone have received show-cause notices, threatening eviction and criminal action, from the Revenue Department. Many of them are labourers catering to the sprawling IT industries being set-up in Whitefield.