54% OF MUMBAI LIVE IN SLUM:- WORLD BANK

While there are conflicting views on whether slums will completely overtake Mumbai's landscape by 2025, as projected by the World Bank, the general consensus is that rehabilitation of slum-dwellers is the only feasible solution

More than half of Mumbai's population now lives in its slums, according to latest statistics from the World Bank (WB), one of the world's largest financial institutions. While almost 54% of the metro's inhabitants live in shanties, another 25-30% live in chawls and on footpaths, with just 10-15% living in apartment buildings, bungalows or high-rises. However, experts rubbish the claim that from being the slum capital of India, Mumbai is now set to become the slum capital of the world.

Projections are that in 20 years, due to factors like a halt in the city's controversial [LINK=/ http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/22/stories/2005012202221000.htm]slum demolition scheme[/LINK], unchecked migration into the city by people in search of jobs, antiquated housing laws and skyrocketing real estate prices, slums will overtake the Mumbai landscape. The WB estimates that 22.5 million people will be living in slums in Mumbai by 2025.

 

 

 

 

 Mumbai’s biggest slum redevelopment plan gets going

MUMBAI: The largest slum redevelopment scheme in Mumbai—and possibly in India—is underway in the island city. Omkar Realty and Developers Pvt Ltd has tied up with Larsen and Toubro Realty, a subsidiary of L&T, to develop a Rs 7,000 crore-plus residential project spread over a 17-acre slum sprawl in Bhoiwada, Parel.
L&T, which is the majority partner, will design, construct and market the high-end luxury apartments with Omkar. The project will have 1,200 apartments spread over 3 million square feet in six towers, each 40-60 floors tall. Flats in this area are currently quoted at approximately Rs 15,000 a sq ft.

 

EDUCATION PROBLEM IN SLUM AREA

Evening free education program for village children is conducted by our tuition centers. These children hail from economically poor background and strife torn families. Brotherhood mission's teachers provide free coaching from 5 to 7 pm every evening in 137 centers with 154 teachers throughout Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. A total of 6600 children are benefited through this scheme in these two countries.

Our Ministry has been actively visiting the villages and bringing an awareness to child education with free evening school, providing school fees to those in need and equipping them with study materials, uniform, notebooks, school bags and etc.

The people in these villages have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are predominantly Hindu and worship idols. We are not able to share the Gospel directly and instead initiate social activities with evening school and slowly present the Gospel to them. Once a month and during holidays and summer vacation, we bring the children to our prayer centre and fellowship with the other children and are taught to worship and pray. The children now have the privilege of learning music and worshipping the Lord.

Gender Inequality

Female babies in the slums of India can face discrimination and poor treatment from their very first moments, if they are given a chance of life at all; although gender specific abortion is illegal in India, it is still practiced in some places.

Male children are seen as a blessing and indulged in many areas of Indian society. Children born into the deprived and harsh environment of the slums may not be as fortunate, but male babies are still given better treatment than the girls. Boys tend to be healthier as they are given  better food in greater quantities, and they are also more likely to be sent to school.

In contrast, girls are seen as a drain on precious resources as they will one day get married and their contribution towards the family will end. To make up for this, they are forced to work from an early age and any ambitions regarding schooling or future careers are discouraged.

With that kind of start in life, it's difficult for women within the slums to find a voice. They are used to getting little support from their embers and are not usually considered worth consulting on family matters.

MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH ISSUES

• Information on maternal and child health indicators among slum-dwellers shows that their health conditions are 2 to 3 times worse than the average health levels in other urban areas in the state of Maharashtra.

• According to estimates, health agencies are only reaching roughly 30 percent of the urban poor -- that too in comparatively less poor slums. For example, a study conducted by Nair Hospital in an urban slum located in E Ward (Byculla) found that 44 percent of new born babies had low birth weight compared to 21 percent, the state average for the rest of urban Maharashtra. In another slum called Cheeta Camp in M-East ward (Chembur), three quarters of the women in the reproductive age group were anaemic, compared to the state average of 49 percent in Maharashtra.

• Public health data suggest that about 80 percent of neonatal deaths in Mumbai occur in the first week of life, mainly because of premature deliveries and complications resulting from birth asphyxia.

• Although more than 95% women are registered in the antenatal period, almost 50% amongst them visit a hospital for the first time in the last three months. Plus almost one-third of the 91% who deliver in the hospitals arrive only half an hour before delivery which means there isn't enough time to diagnose and respond to any complications that may arise. 

• The infant mortality rate in Mumbai has been static at 40 per 1000 births in the last six years while the maternal mortality rate has been on a rise.

India is home to more child labourers under the age of 14 than any other country in the world (Khanna, 1997) and a 2001 census revealed that over 12 million of these children are child labourers. Given that the informal sector is rife with invisible child labourers, this figure is believed to be closer to 44 million and possibly as high as 80-100 million (Rabe, 2006:21).
India is one of the largest natural stone producers accounting for 27% of the world’s production (Rabe, 2006:7). Mining in India was first used long ago by local kingdoms for weaponry and domestic products, then, from the 1800’s by the British Government. It wasn’t until the 1990’s, however, when large public sector companies began exploring India for natural stone resources, that the mining industry became significant and small scale exporting to countries including China and Korea began. Apart from this boom in the mining industry, India’s “economy is growing at one of the fastest rates in the world” (Rabe, 2006:11).
UNICEF estimates that approximately 20% of mine workers are children (Marshalls). Young girls earn less than any other group of employees in the industry (Lahiri-Dutt, 2006:32), making them particularly attractive to businesses driven by profit. Overall women make up 10-50% of quarry workers (Lahiri-Dutt, 2006:4), and 40% of these women are 5-14 years old (Nayak et el, 6).
All children in the mining industry “are undergoing serious physical, social, sexual, psychological and environmental exploitation and trauma” (HAQCRC, 2005:4). They work long hours in extremely dangerous environments often with no safety equipment, clean water, amenities or prescribed pay, while the toxic materials and hazardous environments render them susceptible to a range of serious health problems and injuries (HAQCRC, 2005:4). Girls, however, suffer the additional torment of “gender-specific forms of abuse from their employers, including rape” (Lahiri-Dutt, 2006:32).
Causes
Field work has shown that one of the most common causes of child labour is a lack of education (Rabe, 2006:15). Traditional Indian society supports the subordination of women to men. (Handy et el, 2003:149). “Child labour affects boys and girls differently… Some argue that child labour is becoming increasingly ‘feminised’” due partially to the fact that if an opportunity arises for a family to send a child to school, male children are prioritised above female children (Rabe, 2006:17). This, together with the fact that girls are paid less than boys may help explain the disproportionate number of young girls working in the quarry industry.
Another significant factor which perpetuates society’s acceptance of the way the quarry industry operates is the caste system. “The caste system in India is an intricate hierarchical social scaffold that determines each person’s ‘role’ or function in relation to others… In such a system, society not only ‘approves’ child labour, it demands it” (Rabe, 2006:15). Little action has been taken to enforce child labour laws because it “would disrupt existing social arrangements” (Rabe, 2006:21). In essence social hierarchy lies at the root of the issue.
Protection
India’s Constitution prohibits children under 14 from working in mines (Rabe, 2006:21). In addition child labour legislation prohibits children from working in “hazardous industries” and mining legislation regulates welfare, safety and health issues (Lahiri-Dutt, 2006:19).
Despite these protections offered by India’s legal framework, children continue to be exploited by the mining industry. One of the reasons for this is that, while there are a few major public and international companies operating in India, the mining industry is dominated by small, private companies linked to a labyrinth of illegal activity and overwhelmingly operating in the “informal” sector (HAQCRC, 2005:6). Many mine labourers have no formal record or registration of their existence (Kulkarni, 2007:1).

The reality of life in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum

The popularity of Danny Boyle’s recent film, Slumdog Millionaire has led to a surge of media interest in the Mumbai slum of Dharavi which is partially depicted in the film.

An important part of many people’s motivation for going to see the film will have been the depiction of severe poverty and an attempt, however implausibly realised in the story, to escape it. This popular concern, which took the studios by surprise, has assumed fresh urgency.

A slum clearance program by the state government, tied to potential corporate development, is set to worsen the plight of many workers and residents in Dharavi, confronting them with homelessness and the loss of their livelihoods. A more considered and serious approach to the phenomenon of slums like Dharavi is needed than has appeared in much of the world’s press. 

Dharavi, which rivals Orangi Township in Karachi, Pakistan, for the title of Asia’s largest slum, is an administrative ward, stretching over parts of Sion, East Bandra, Kurla and Kalina suburbs of Mumbai. Spread over an area of around 200 hectares, according to official figures it has approximately 86,000 slum structures and an estimated population of up to one million, making it one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

In Mumbai there are other slums which are beginning to rival Dharavi in size and squalor. In a city of 15 million people, almost 60 percent live in slums or in over 2000 “slum pockets” across the city.

All cities in India are loud, but nothing matches the 24/7 decibel level of Mumbai, the former Bombay, where the traffic never stops and the horns always honk. Noise, however, is not a problem in Dharavi, the teeming slum of one million souls, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre (0.4 hectares). By nightfall, deep inside the maze of lanes too narrow even for the putt-putt of auto rickshaws, the slum is as still as a verdant glade. Once you get accustomed to sharing 300 square feet (28 square meters) of floor with 15 humans and an uncounted number of mice, a strange sense of relaxation sets in—ah, at last a moment to think straight.

Dharavi is routinely called "the largest slum in Asia," a dubious attribution sometimes conflated into "the largest slum in the world." This is not true. Mexico City's Neza-Chalco-Itza barrio has four times as many people. In Asia, Karachi's Orangi Township has surpassed Dharavi. Even in Mumbai, where about half of the city's swelling 12 million population lives in what is euphemistically referred to as "informal" housing, other slum pockets rival Dharavi in size and squalor.

Yet Dharavi remains unique among slums. A neighborhood smack in the heart of Mumbai, it retains the emotional and historical pull of a subcontinental Harlem—a square-mile (three square kilometers) center of all things, geographically, psychologically, spiritually. Its location has also made it hot real estate in Mumbai, a city that epitomizes India's hopes of becoming an economic rival to China. Indeed, on a planet where half of humanity will soon live in cities, the forces at work in Dharavi serve as a window not only on the future of India's burgeoning cities, but on urban space everywhere.