Essays

A sample slum project should act as an inspiration for eradicating the plight of millions of slum dwellers in India. The project may have brought about qualitative changes in the lives of lakhs of slum dwellers, but an estimated 45 million people continue to live in sub- human conditions in thousands of slums across the country. They do not have access to many of the basic necessities of life. This despite the fact that they live amid an ocean of plenty and prosperity.

This is a major cause for major concern as slum dwellers not only form a significant proportion of the total population but also play a significant role in the urban economy. By providing cheap labour for the construction work, selling green vegetables to the urban health-conscious citizen, pulling rickshaws where public transport is not available, and providing cheap domestic help are some of the major economic functions performed by the slum dwellers.

Unfortunately slum dwellers are looked upon by the rest of society as an appendix causing ills in the urban body. This is misleading. Slum inhabitants are rather like that artery which if blocked would cease the smooth functioning of the whole city. A byproduct of industrialization, and rapid urbanization slums are areas of low civic amenities with clusters of houses inhabited by low income groups who often work as vendors, flower traders, watchmen, domestic, help, rickshaw drivers, and unskilled labourers working at construction sites.

More appropriately, a slum can be defined as an area of overcrowded and dilapidated usually old housing occupied by people who can afford only the cheap dwellings available in the urban area, generally in or close to the inner city. The term usually implies both a poverty ridden population and unhealthy environment and a district ripe with crime and vice.

The problems of the slum dwellers are manifold. First they live in subhuman conditions. The degraded environment in which they live, take their toll on the physical, mental, and moral health. The slum dwellers mostly live in cramped, overcrowded, and unventilated dwellings.

In Mumbai, for example, the slum dwellers and the homeless account for about 50% of the population but they occupy only six percent of the city's land area. Similarly Delhi which has the third largest slum population in the country accommodates an estimated 32 lakh people in about 1,000 slums.

According to the 1991 census, some of the slums have a population density of more than 60,000 persons per square km. Given such a mode of living, slum dwellers are exposed to a variety of diseases. Lack of adequate medical facilities further aggravates their plight. There are not enough trained doctors and paramedical staff to look after the patients in the slums. They are unable to pay the hefty fee charged by the private practitioners and nursing homes.

In a study it was found that majority of slum dwellers are exposed to water-borne and other infectious diseases. Children and women are more susceptible to such diseases. Added to this is the problem of scarcity due to poverty. Even the basic necessities of the slum dwellers are not met. Contaminated drinking water, lack of sewage, inadequate schooling facilities for children, no privacy for women and poor supply of electricity are some of the perpetual problems faced by them. All this takes a heavy toll on the health and lives of the slum dwellers.

A large number of slum dwellers in Delhi depend on shallow hand pump water which is mostly contaminated. According to an estimate, the entire Delhi population (94.21 lakh) requires about 535 million gallons of water daily (MGD). However, the actual availability is limited to 425 MGD after deducting the operational losses. The shortfall is of 110 MGD which is unequably distributed between the posh colonies who have no shortage even for watering their lawns. The slum dwellers that have to struggle hard for survival do not have even drinking water to their satisfaction.

A survey by the Delhi-based National Institute of Communicable Diseases found that 50% of water supplied to jhuggi jhompri clusters is not fit for drinking.

The situation in other metropolitan cities is equally pathetic. In a survey by the Hindu Daily, of the 540 households of Santosh nagar, a slum settlement is considered by Mumbai Municipal Corporation to be well provided in terms of infrastructure. Here it was found that 14% of the households drew drinking water from wells of varying depths. On examination it was found that the water of these wells was contaminated.

Another serious problem facing the slums is increasing crime. Cases of violence for self-preservation, fighting, rape, and stealing are very common. It is a pity that even after over fifty years of independence, the country has not been able to give freedom to a large chunk of our population who continue to live in bondage of drudgery and deprivation.