SPROUTING OF SLUMS

THE UNION GOVERNMENT has launched key welfare schemes in the last eight years, including the Swacch Bharat Mission or Jal Jeevan Mission.

These schemes have been a runaway success in improving equity among the masses. However, one key marginalised section that is yet to avail of these benefits in its entirety is the urban slum dweller.

The proponents of the 'modernisation' theory of slums claim that the emergence of slums is a transitory phenomenon in emerging economies. Economic growth has a trickle-down effect, and this eventually leads to a transition toward formal housing. Many developed countries have undergone this phase. However, as Marx, Stoker & Suri (2013),in their paper The Economics of Slums in the Developing their residents”. The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister’s (EACPM’s) recent calculation also points in this direction. While poverty in rural areas has decreased by 5.6 per cent, it has only reduced by 1.1 per cent in urban areas. In states like Bihar, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the number of people living under the poverty line is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. It is plausibly, because of the absence of land titles and difficulty in relying on the safety net in urban areas created by several schemes, like SBM, JJM, Ujjwala or something like the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana.