Five states home to over 50% of India's slums: Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Bihar top list

By Vipul Vivek

The top five states by number of slums per 100 households – Chhattisgarh (18), Odisha (17), Jharkhand (14), Tamil Nadu (11) and Bihar (10) – in 2008-09, the latest year for which household data are available, had 51 percent of India’s slums, according to a new  paper .

The top five by number of slums per 100 households are the only states/union territories with more than 10 percent of their population living in slums, said the September 2017  paper  by HS Chopra, project director in Rajasthan’s rural development department.

In 2008-09, Tamil Nadu had the highest share of India’s slums at 931,169 or 30 percent, the only state/union territory with a share in double digits.

Households that lacked a concrete roof, drinking water, a latrine and closed drainage – the criteria laid down by an August 2010  report  of the slum census committee – in the 2008-09 survey data of the National Sample Survey Office, India’s official socio-economic surveyor, were counted as slums.

Source:  Ministry Of Statistics & Programme Implementation ; Data not available for other states

A  slum is defined as “a compact settlement of at least 20 households with slum-like conditions as given in the above criteria”, according to the paper.

Overall, 3.15 million–about 28 percent less than the Census 2011 figure of 4.4 million – or 5 percent of India’s households were slums in 2008-09.

The only communities with more than 10 percent of their population living in slums were  scheduled castes  and  scheduled tribes , deprived communities identified in India’s constitution for government support.

Source:  Ministry Of Statistics & Programme Implementation

In urban India, 60 percent slums are on government land with 40 percent owned by urban local bodies, according to the  draft  National Urban Rental Housing Policy 2015.

The share of slums with a health centre and a primary school within 1 km fell 16 and 3 percentage points, respectively, to 47 percent and 87 percent in 2009 from 63 percent and 90 percent in 1993, according to the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry’s  2015 statistical compendium on slums .

In Mumbai–home to  the world’s third largest slum by population , Dharavi – 90 percent of deaths result from respiratory diseases, according to a survey by International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai, the Indian Express  reported  on August 7, 2015. Apart from Dharavi, slums in Mumbai’s suburbs too were growing to become at least as big as Dharavi, the Times Of India  reported  on July 6, 2011. Despite having India’s largest slums, only 3.7 percent of Maharashtra’s 9.8 million households were in slums, and only one in 100 households in the state was in a slum in 2008-09.

Slum dwellers often sell homes that the government relocates them to because these end up being far from their workplaces, according to Saudamini Das at Delhi University’s Institute Of Economic Growth, City Labs  reported  on June 9, 2017.

• Develop housing on slum land:  draft National Urban Rental Housing Policy 2015

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• Govt provides streetlight and sewage facility to slum households: “Do neighbourhood facilities matter for slum housing? Evidence from Indian slum clusters” , March 15, 2016, by Saudamini Das and Arup Mitra (Institute Of Economic Growth, New Delhi) and Rajnish Kumar (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)

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• Give unconditional no-eviction guarantee: Mukta Naik, Centre For Policy Research, to the Indian Express on May 12, 2017

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