SLUMS,

PROBLEMS,
MEASURES

PROF BHAVNA VERMA

 PRESENT SITAUTION
The census report identified 13.8 million households - about 64 million people -
located in city slums nationwide. That's 17.4 percent of all urban households,
which account for roughly one-third of India's 1.2 billion people.( Census 2011).

Slum Population -India 65,494,6041

Maharashtra 11,848,4232

Andhra Pradesh 10,186,9343

Tamil Nadu 5,798,459

 PRESENT SITAUTION
Almost half the world's urban population lives in slums. Asia has the largest number of slum dwellers
overall, with 554 million, while sub-Saharan Africa has the largest percentage of its urban population living
in slums — about 71 percent

The World's Largest Slums:

Khayelitsha in Cape Town (South Africa): 400,000.

Kibera in Nairobi (Kenya): 700,000.

Dharavi in Mumbai (India): 1,000,000.

Neza (Mexico): 1,200,000.

Orangi Town in Karachi (Pakistan): 2,400,000.

More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and by 2030 it is projected that over half of
residents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will reside in cities (Montgomery, 2008).
 Definition of slum
Slum as “one or a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban
area, lacking in one or more of the following five amenities”:
1) Durable housing (a permanent structure providing protection from extreme
climatic conditions);
2) Sufficient living area (no more than three people sharing a room);
3) Access to improved water (water that is sufficient, affordable, and can be
obtained without extreme effort);
4) Access to improved sanitation facilities (a private toilet, or a public one shared
with a reasonable number of people); and
5) Secure tenure (de facto or de jure secure tenure status and protection against
forced eviction) (UN-HABITAT, 2006/7).
The word “slum” is often used to describe informal settlements within cities that

have inadequate housing and miserable living conditions. They are often

overcrowded, with many people scrammed into very small living spaces. Slums

are not a new phenomenon. They have been a part of the history of almost all

cities, particularly during the phase of urbanisation and industrialisation. Slums

are generally the only type of settlement affordable and accessible to the poor in

cities, where competition for land and profits is intense..

Section 3 of the Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearence) Act, 1956

defines slums as areas where buildings: are in any respect unfit for

human habitation, are by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding,

faulty arrangement and design of such buildings, narrowness or

faulty arrangement of street, lack of ventilation, light or sanitation

facilities, or any combination of these factors, are detrimental to

safety, health or moral.

Definition of Slums as per Census 2011
i. All notified areas in a town or city notified as ‘Slum’ by State, UT
Administration or Local Government, Housing and Slum Boards etc. under
any Statute including a ‘Slum Act’ are considered as Notified Slum.
ii. All areas recognized as ‘Slum’ by State/Local Government, UT
Administration, Housing and Slum Boards etc., which may have not been
formally notified as slum under any statute are categorized as Recognized
Slum.
iii. A compact area of at least 300 populations or about 60-70 households of
poorly built congested tenements, in unhygienic environment usually with
inadequate infrastructure and lacking in proper sanitary and drinking water
facilities in the State/UT are categorized as Identified Slums.
“Slum” or “Slum Area” means a compact settlement of at least

twenty households with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly of

temporary nature, crowded together usually with inadequate sanitary and

drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions. “Slum Dweller” means

any person residing within the limits of a slum area.(2011,Ministry Of

Housing & Urban Poverty,Alleviation,Government Of India).

 Characteristics of the Slums
Physically, slums consist of clusters of huts comprising several rooms constructed with
temporary building materials, where each room is inhabited by a family sharing a common
latrine, without arrangements for water supply, drains, disposal of solid waste and garbage
within the slum boundaries.
Slums are characterized by
a) Lack of basic services,
b) Overcrowding,
c) high density doubtful and insecure tenure,
d) Inadequate housing,
e) Hazardous or precarious environments,
f) Lack of access to basic facilities,
g) Poverty or social exclusion.
It is to be understood that each locality, each metropolitan area
has different slum types and none of them could be subsumed
in one broad category. The slums are usually characterized by
inadequate housing, congestion, overcrowding and lack of
services
 Types of slums
Slums of Hope- In These type of slum progressive attitude is visible ,slum dwellers have
their own constructed houses though they built it illegally. But the possibility of reformation is
always visible.

Slums of Despair- In this kind of slum the living condition are miserable. The hope of
development is rarely seen due to decreased level of domestic services.

 Unauthorized slums are those, which are simply encroachments by the poor people
either displaced from the city itself or retrenched from their work place, on the roadside
(locally called jhupri), canals (called khaldhar), or any vacant place (called udbastu) another
type of displacement is reported as displacement due to an excessive increase in family
size. It has been found that the predominant structure types in the slum areas are pukka,
semi-pukkaand kutcha (crude or imperfect).
 Types of Slums
1 authorized slums are the hut type settlements on leased land from
landowners, which is let out to migrants;
2 The second type of slum called “thika tenant slums” where the
slum dwellers have taken possession at a fixed rent and have
constructed their houses;
3 Third types of slums are those constructed by zaminders
(landowners) themselves and let out to the slum dwellers. These
types of slums are locally called bustees;
4 The fourth type of slums is Refugee Resettlement Colonies
(locally called udbastu colonies) where land has been leased out for
99 years to the refugees from present-day.
 Causes of Proliferation
OVER POPULATION - There is acute shortage of housing in urban areas and much of the

available accommodation is qualitatively of sub-standard variety. This problem has tended

to worsen over the years due to rapid increase in population, fast rate of urbanization and

proportionately inadequate addition to the housing stock.

MIGRATION - migration to urban areas puts pressure on the urban basic amenities, like

water supply, drainage, sewerage, housing, transport facilities, and so on, which are

already constrained in Indian cities. The financial resources of urban local bodies are

limited and increase in migration to urban areas creates problems for urban governance.
The main reason for slum proliferation is rapid and

non inclusive patterns of Urbanisation catalyzed by

increasing rural migration to urban areas. Slums in

India(A Statistical Compendium ,2015)

There are various reasons for creation of slums of which the most
important are as follows:

• Increased urbanization leading to pressure on the available land and

infrastructure, especially for the poor.
• Natural increase in the population of urban poor and migration from rural areas
and small towns to larger cities.
• Inappropriate system of urban planning which does not provide adequate space
for the urban poor in the City Master Plans.
• Sky-rocketing land prices due to increasing demand for land and constraints on
supply of land.
• Absence of programmes of affordable housing for the urban poor in most
States.
• Lack of availability of credit for low income housing.
Increasing cost of construction.
 Governmental Measures
National Slum Development Programme (NSDP), Night Shelters, Two Million

Housing Scheme, Accelerated Urban Water Supply Programme (AUWSP), and

Low-Cost Sanitation — provide for a wide range of services to the urban poor

including slum dwellers. They include identification of the urban poor, formation of

community groups, involvement of NGOs, self-help/thrift and credit activities, training for

livelihood, credit and subsidy for economic activities, housing and sanitation,

environmental improvement, community assets, wage employment and convergence of

services.
National Slum Development Programme (NSDP) The NSDP initiated in 1996 as

a scheme of Special Central Assistance for slum improvement, has been providing

additional central assistance to state governments to provide water supply and

sanitation among other facilities to the slums.

This scheme has been launched in 2001-02 to provide shelter or upgrade the

existing shelter of the people living below poverty line in urban slums implemented

in partnership with state governments who will set up the implementation

machinery, arrange for land where required and for the credit component for

housing. The state funds under the scheme will be in proportion to their slum

population.
a) Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) which

was launched on 3rd December, 2005 with the objectives of augmenting

infrastructure facilities in cities and towns along with provision of shelter and

basic civic services to slum dwellers/urban poor. JNNURM aims at creating

‘economically productive, efficient, equitable and responsive Cities’ by a

strategy of upgrading the social and economic infrastructure in cities, provision

of Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) and wide-ranging urban sector

reforms to strengthen municipal governance in accordance with the 74th

Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992.

Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing the Urban Poor (ISHUP)

has been conceived for providing interest subsidy on housing urban poor

to make the housing affordable and within the repaying capacity of

Economically Weaker Section. The scheme encourages poor sections to

avail of loan facilities through Commercial Banks/HUDCO for the

purposes of construction of houses and avail 5% subsidy in interest

payment for loans upto Rs. 1 lakh.

Valmiki-Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY) has been

introduced in 2001-02 to provide a shelter or upgrading the

existing shelter to BPL people in urban slums. Twenty per cent of

the total allocation under VAMBAY is provided for sanitation and

community toilets to be built for the urban poor and slum dwellers.
Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) has been launched in 2009, for the slum
dwellers and the urban poor. This scheme would aim to provide support for
shelter & basic civic and social services for slum redevelopment and for
creation of new affordable housing stock to States that are willing to assign
property rights to slum dwellers. The Slum Free City/State Plan is envisaged to
comprise of two parts— Part I- Strategy to redevelop existing slums and Part II
– Strategy for prevention of creation of slums, delineating the development of
affordable housing for the urban poor and revision to existing urban policy and
programmes for the prevention of slums. This plan would form the basis for
providing assistance to the States, after the scheme is approved.
“Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Housing for All (Urban)” Mission for urban area will be
implemented during 2015-2022 and this Mission will provide central assistance to implementing
agencies through States and UTs for providing houses to all eligible families/ beneficiaries by 2022.

A beneficiary family will comprise husband, wife, unmarried sons and/or unmarried daughters. The
beneficiary family should not own a pucca house either in his/her name or in the name of any member
of his/ her family in any part of India to be eligible to receive central assistance under the mission.

States/UTs, at their discretion, may decide a cut-off date on which beneficiaries need to be resident of
that urban area for being eligible to take benefits under the scheme.

All statutory towns as per Census 2011 and towns notified subsequently would be eligible for
coverage under the Mission. States/UTs will have the flexibility to include in the Mission the Planning
area as notified with respect to the Statutory town and which surrounds the concerned municipal area.
Continued….
The mission will support construction of houses upto 30 square meter carpet area
with basic civic infrastructure. States/UTs will have flexibility in terms of determining
the size of house and other facilities at the state level in consultation with the
Ministry but without any enhanced financial assistance from Centre.
Slum redevelopment projects and Affordable Housing projects in partnership should
have basic civic infrastructure like water, sanitation, sewerage, road, electricity etc.
ULB should ensure that individual houses under credit linked interest subsidy and
beneficiary led construction should have provision for these basic civic services.
The minimum size of houses constructed under the mission under each component
should conform to the standards provided in National Building Code (NBC). All
houses built or expanded under the Mission should essentially have toilet facility.
The houses under the mission should be designed and constructed to meet the
requirements of structural safety against earthquake, flood, cyclone, landslides etc.
conforming to the National Building Code and other relevant Bureau of Indian
Standards (BIS) codes.
 References

Montgomery Mark R. The Urban Transformation of the Developing World.

Science. 2008;319:761–764. [PubMed]
Un-Habitat. State of the World’s Cities 2006/2007 [Online] Nairobi,
Kenya: 2006/7.
2011,Ministry Of Housing & Urban Poverty,Alleviation,Government Of
India
(A Statistical Compendium ,2015Government of India Ministry of
Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, National Buildings Organization
page no.1)
Census of India 2011.
THANK YOU