The number of urban slum-dwellers rose from 27.9 million in 1981 to 46.2 million in 1991 and 61.8 million in 2001, according to estimates by the Town and Country Planning Organisation

The number of people living in slums in India, Asia's fourth largest economy and the world's second fastest growing one, has more than doubled in the past two decades, according to official figures. About a quarter of the country's billion-plus population now live in towns and cities.

The number of urban slum-dwellers rose from 27.9 million in 1981 to 46.2 million in 1991 and 61.8 million in 2001 -- the latest census data available -- according to estimates by Town and Country Planning Organisation, Junior Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Kumari Selja, told the Rajya Sabha or Upper House of Parliament, on May 17, 2007.

The country's financial capital, Mumbai, houses the largest number of urban slums -- some 6.5 million people live in them. The city is also home to Asia's largest slum, Dharavi.

New Delhi follows, with 1.8 million people living in squalor, bereft of even the basic necessities of sanitation and clean drinking water.

Kolkata, with 1.49 lakh slum inhabitants, is a close third.

Although the Indian economy has grown at an average of 8.6% in the last four years, analysts say the growth has not touched millions of India's poor.

The government has launched several schemes to provide housing and civic amenities to slum-dwellers in cities, like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), said Selja. She added: "The basic services in the urban poor programme address housing and civic amenities in 63 Mission cities."

Similar problems in non-Mission cities are addressed through the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme, Selja added.

But civil rights groups say the government has not done enough. "Slums are here to stay," says Maju Varghese of YUVA Urban, a social organisation working with the urban poor. "What has happened is the total failure of the government to provide affordable housing to the urban poor. The government has completely ignored this problem."

Source: Reuters, May 18, 2007
PTI, May 17, 2007