Introduction Narrow pathways, clogged drainage, shattered roofs, foul smell, unclean water, poor electricity, absence of toilets, and filth reign supreme in the slum dwellings of India, where a leaden sky hovers over millions of people crammed in their one room, dilapidated houses. In India, 377 million people (31% of the population) live in urban cities. While this might seem an accomplishment, it is far from it, since out of this 377 million, 65 million people are forced to live in slums due to their extreme poverty. The film city of India – Mumbai–on the one hand, houses one of India’s richest, while on the other hand, it is a dark abyss for almost 1 million people who reside in the largest slum dwelling of Asia–Dharavi. Slums are a materialistic representation of the poverty-stricken classes. Men and women from rural areas migrate to the cities in search of better employment opportunities, but since the cost of living is high in cities, these migrated people settle down in shanties or unplanned colonies and make it their permanent residence. An Urban-Urban divide is emerging in the nocturnal cities of India. Urban poverty takes a heavy toll on its victims. Hence, the government and the administration, is striving for an ‘inclusive growth’ in the cities which will focus on providing strong shelter, sustained employment, and basic services like water, electricity, and food to the otherwise ignored slum dwellers. The Government is also planning for a guided urban organization to control the unmethodical mushrooming of slums.
An Overview of the Situation of Slums in India. One in every six urban Indians live in slums. Slums are so common that they can be found in 65% of the Indian towns. The slum dwellers face myriad deprivations. Inaccessibility to safe drinking water, education and health services is a heavy baggage placed on them. The United Nations Millennium Declaration 2000 recognized immediate need for national governments to eradicate slum and urban poverty. It pressed on instant strategies to be executed by the governments to refine the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. In 2013, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report revealed that the slum population in India had declined from 42% in 2020 to 29% in 2013.
Government Policies and Programmes for Slum Development The Indian government has come up with various policies and programmes to check the growth of slums. It also aims to incorporate new developmental projects to improve the living conditions of the slum dwellers by providing them basic infrastructure and proper shelters. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) or ‘Housing for All’ was launched in 2015 and aimed at housing the poor in the urban cities. Under the PMAY, central assistance is provided to the states and the union territories to facilitate housing for all slum dwellers. Its goal is to provide housing to every Indian household by 2022. It plans to include 300 major cities in India. One of the major components of the program is to utilize in-situ slum rehabilitation, through which the government has devised a strategy to encourage private developers to use land as a resource.So far 8.1 million houses have been approved under PMAY, out of which 4.7 million are under construction and 2.6 million have been completed. Similarly, in 2005, the government had proposed the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Under JNNURM, two programmes, namely, Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) were planned out. The former focused on providing the basic infrastructure (clean drinking water, sanitation, electricity, sewage, streets, clinics, schools etc.) to build for them a healthy and hygienic environment. The latter aimed at building houses for the poor who did not possess adequate shelter. Other urban-development oriented policies and programmes were proposed as well. Smart City Mission is one of them. Launched in 2015, (to create smart cities) it focuses on basic amenities, education, health services, IT accessibility, digitization, e-governance, sustainable development, safety, and security. A similar programme called AMRUT i.e., Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation was launched in the same year, which aimed at reducing the gap between infrastructural necessity and their accessibility.
The Success of the Policies The slum developmental projects have certainly provided some relief to the slum colonies. The Public Housing Mission is cost effective since the government helps create affordable housing stock for low-income slum dwellers. A competition ensues between the Private sector which ensures good quality of construction to win future project bids. Therefore, as private sector has an incentive to create housing for poor, beneficiaries are accurately identified. Thirdly, in-situ slum redevelopment ensures the long terms livelihoods for slum dwellers. Odisha was awarded Geospatial Excellence Award by the World Habitat Mission for its outstanding project – Jaga (Land) Mission. The government extensively worked in providing legal ownership of the land (Land Rights for Slum Dwellers Act, 2017) to the slum dwellers with all necessary civic infrastructure and services. Providing land rights is pertinent in the current scenario, because slum dwellers are often viewed as encroachers and culprits. This illegality shuns the slum dwellers to unsanitary conditions and differentiates between the slum and non-slum localities. Legal recognition of land allows better living conditions for the slum dwellers.
The Failures of the Policies. Even after well thought policies and programmes, why is the problem of slums increasing in India? The failure of the policies could be analysed in their plan of action. There is a lack of tenure-based policies in India, so the slum dwellers are barred from enjoying the occupancy rights and live in a fear eviction. This results in degradation of their quality of life. Secondly, there is lack of the play of private companies in the upgradation of slums. Even if the players do work, it either goes in the wrong hands or they player lack the will to affect changes. Thirdly, the limited government capacity and slow approval process hinders the projects. For instance, in BSUP only 33% of approved projects were constructed. Housing for All evolved, as a response to low quality houses being built in BSUP, which saw low take up rates by target population. Various developmental projects have been figured out for Dharavi. Recently, the Dharavai redevelopment project has come into a new limelight with Dubai-based Seclink Technology Corporation winning the tender to change the 600acre landscape of Dharavi. The project has promised every slum dweller with a 350 square foot house of carpet area along with additional compensation. Interestingly, the Dharavi residents have shown resistance to this project, because of the business thriving in the colonies of Dharavi. This informal economy employs close to a million people. Potters, electricians, handicraft artists, garbage recyclers, with buyers and sellers, Dharavi has them all. The residents are therefore worried about losing their jobs. The development project will be of no success without addressing this issue first.
Conclusion Administrative interventions in the Slum Dwellings, thus, occupy two facets of the same coin. While some projects have shone light, others have been debilating for the already down-trodden people. There is still a lot of effort required from the government’s end to rectify the situation. Apart from this, India is facing the acute problem of high population density. In the last 15 years, the population density has increased 45%. By 2026, 40% of the population would be living in urban cities. Therefore, there is an immediate need for the administration to intervene into grass root problems, namely the twin problems posed population, poverty and inefficient implementation.
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