Social mapping in KTJC-New Delhi- a slum by Vinod Pandey

Urban morning reality!

UP govt decided to give Rs 1,000 per month as unemployment allowance to the youth between 30 and 40 years of age

The Uttar Pradesh Government has decided to give Rs 1,000 per month as unemployment allowance to the youth between 30 and 40 years of age. It has been decided by the State Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

AIR Lucknow correspondent reports that for the implementation of the much-publicised scheme, the Government has fixed Class 10 as the minimum qualification to be eligible for the allowance.

The Government has said about 10 lakh unemployed would be able to benefit from the scheme and over Rs 1,200 crore would be spent every year under the Uttar Pradesh Berozgari Bhatta Yojna (unemployment allowance), 2012. The allowance would be given to the eligible youth on a quarterly basis.

An official spokesman said the candidates registered in employment exchanges till March 15 this year who are natives of the state and annual income of their families is not more than Rs 36,000 per year from all sources would be eligible for the allowance.

The spokesman has clarified that once the candidates find an employment their allowance would be discontinued.

AIR correspondent reports that when unemployment allowance was rolled out during the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav Government, the age of eligibility was 21 years to 40 years.

For more information could go through:

http://newsfox.in/2012/05/12/up-govt-decided-to-give-rs-1000-per-month-as-unemployment-allowance-to-the-youth-between-30-and-40-years-of-age/

‘A peaceful end’

Idrish Mollah (name changed) a young man from Muslim camp was suffering last few years. Finally when he visited doctor it was found that he is undergoing the last stage of AIDS. The pressure from the neighbors and fear of the immediate family drove him away from the home. He took shelter under a tree little far from the house and started begging for food.

Taj Ali, Pinki Khatun, Md. Abid and Chandni our ‘Youth Group and Child Parliament’ members came to know and organized themselves with the help of other group members and started counseling the community and their family members. After a few days they could break the misunderstanding about the HIV/AIDS.

Idrish was back in home and received love and care by the same family members till his death. While dying Irish said, ‘because of you I shall have a peaceful death’

Courtsey: Caritas India (Kolkata office)

Urban people may not know the real problems of farmers

           The common man views farming as something to do only with government

It is an accepted fact that importing food cannot solve the problem of food shortage. “Modern technologies do offer vast prospects for crop improvement, but that alone need not make it popular among small and marginal farmers,” says farmer Mr. Mahavir Singh Arya, from Churu district, Rajasthan.

Despite facing acute problem of water shortage, Mr. Mahavir, an advocate of organic farming, developed numerous varieties of wheat and mustard, and claims that he never used any inorganic fertilizer to grow crops and still managed to generate good yield.

Ignorant

“Urban people do not seem to know the real problem we farmers face,” he says and adds: “To them it becomes an issue only during price hike. Though farming encompasses a vast area, a large section of the public view agriculture as something involving only the government, and it becomes a job for elected persons to resolve the farmers' problems.

“The fact, that we import food to cater to domestic demand, besides large scale migration to cities does not seem to cause any serious concern in the urban man's mind,” he notes with concern.

According to him, though urban people may be fascinated by the simple village life, in reality it is not that easy.

“The aspiration of rural folk is to seek out greener pastures in nearby metros, educate their kids and push them out of the village. Hence statistically, food supply is dwindling and demand is shooting up — we are all sitting on a volcano ready to erupt anytime,” he feels.

“A farmer's life is a tale of continuous experimentation and struggle for existence, and even getting a good price for the produce is difficult for us,” he explains.

Several odds

Inspite of all odds, inquisitiveness made him visit Hissar Agriculture University to see some breeding experiments in crop varieties and learn the method of selection and crossing between different varieties.

He returned to start experimenting in the fields. Encouraged by success, he got interested in breeding and thereafter he made it a point to visit various research institutions and universities, to keep himself updated.

The farmer developed more than 10 varieties of mustard by crossing the varieties available in Delhi region.

The maturity period of all these varieties ranges from 130 to 150 days and the yield from about 1.8 tonnes to 2.4 tonnes per hectare. All the varieties are disease resistant and high yielding, according to him.

He chanced upon a variety of tall and high yielding wheat and crossed it with a locally popular variety.

The next year, the farmer observed that the crops grew taller and bore bolder grains that were resistant to disease.

He selected plants possessing characteristics like height of the plant, resistance to disease, etc., every year and developed the variety ‘Mahavir Kisan Mahan.'

15 wheat varieties

In the same way, he kept on crossing varieties obtained from different regions with other local varieties and successfully developed more than 15 varieties of wheat.

The maturity period of all the wheat varieties varies from 135-160 days, except one, named Mahavir Kishan Pragati, a short duration dwarf variety developed by him that comes to harvest in 95-110 days.

The yield of these varieties varies from 4-8 tonnes for a hectare. “For a farmer every available area of space needs to be utilised so that some sort of income can be generated.

Water shortage

“In places like ours where water is a scarce commodity, extra effort is needed to obtain even average yield. Government should look into the cause of the millions of farmers like Mr Mahavir who toil day in and day out to feed the over billion plus population of the country.” says Sundaram Verma, a progressive farmer himself and Honey Bee Network collaborator of Rajasthan.

Mr. Mahavir mentions that the government may be trying its best, but an extra effort towards providing enough support to the farmers would go a long way in making India a self-reliant country in food crops.

For more information, contact Mahavir Singh Arya, village Gudan, taluka Rajgadh, district Churu, Rajasthan, Mobile 09461932854.

for more on this you can log on to http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/article3377267.ece 

Attitude is everything!

Md. Soni is an ordinary boy of Tangra Muslim Camp. He was one of the most unfortunate children like many others who had never been to school. 

It was nothing but the peer pressure made him to join as ‘youth group member’, initial days he used to sit back quietly, after attending few youth meetings, he started speaking and asking questions. He was also learning alphabets to write his name for the senior members. He was developing speaking, listening skills after attending an input session on ‘Developing communication Skills.

Gradually he became leader of the group and stated taking sessions, making plans for the groups, his true leadership qualities were improving day by day. In the month of April 2010, he attended an interview with some of the literate youths from the community for a prestigious ‘retail shop’. In spite of his illiteracy, he was selected and started work there. Now he gives training for the fresher and many youths from the community are working with him for the company.

He often meets with the youth group members, motivates them and helping them to built the ‘Attitude’. As he says “SKC programs helped me to build up my attitude towards life.”

                                                                 

                                                                         Md. Sony says “Attitude is everything”

A Slum called Hollywood

In these days of discord, disharmony, conflict and competition, finding affinity between two entities that are geographically far apart and no match to each other in socio-economic or cultural terms, is impossibility. But that is what this photo series did, and it went on to discover the impossible - A small slum area in the heart of the posh new city of Ahmedabad called HOLLYWOOD. The actual name of the area is Gulbhaitekra, but it has been popularly known as HOLLYWOOD for the last 4 decades for the reason that the women living here have a rustic beauty and glamour which is found to resemble that of Hollywood stars. Photographer KANNAGI KHANNA shares her images as she meets the enchanting women of Hollywood.

   Fresh look at poverty line planned

7^th April 2012: After facing a barrage of criticism on the issue of poverty line during the last few months, the Planning Commission has decided to appoint a technical committee to look into the whole issue afresh.

Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said here on Saturday that the committee of experts would be appointed in a couple of weeks. The terms of reference were being worked out and the commission would notify it once the exercise was completed.

Task for experts

Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the launch of the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellowship programme here, Mr. Ahluwalia said he never meant to arbitrarily bring down the figures of the poor in the country. The Planning Commission would never arrive at a decision on the status of poverty on its own. The estimates would be done by expert panels engaged by it, he explained.

The Suresh Tendulkar Committee had put the people below poverty line (BPL) at slightly lesser than 30 per cent (360 million) in 2009-10, down from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05. The strategy of inclusive growth during the United Progressive Alliance rule had brought down poverty by 1.5 percentage points every year after 2004-05, while it had come down only by 0.74 percentage points during 1993-94 and 2004-05, Mr. Ahluwalia stated.

Debated figures

On the much debated figures of Rs. 32 per capita income per day in urban areas and Rs. 26 per capita income per day in rural areas to decide the status of poverty, the Plan panel deputy chief said the numbers were arrived at by social activists and not by the Planning Commission.

“What we told the Supreme Court was that Rs. 4,800 income per family per month in urban areas and Rs. 3,900 in rural areas is the line of poverty,” he said.

The 20 per cent of people above the poverty line were also poor but they were slightly better off than those below the line. But for the drought conditions in 2009, the poverty would have come down further. The 2011-12 National Sample Survey Organization study results to be released in early 2013 would definitely bring down poverty further, he said.

However, Mr. Ahluwalia said the poverty line was not linked to the implementation of programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Right to Education Act and Food Security Act (FSA). “It is the Planning Commission which recommended coverage of 46 per cent population under the FSA,” he reminded. It was not true that decline in BPL people would take away benefits from them.

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said they were delinking the total sanitation scheme and the National Rural Livelihoods Mission from the poverty line. He termed the debate on poverty line completely ill-informed and hysterically trivialised.

PTI adds:

Mr. Ramesh on Saturday took a dig at MPs who criticised the methodology adopted by the Tendulkar Committee for redefining the term 'poor', saying members raising the issue were probably only aware of Sachin Tendulkar, not Suresh Tendulkar.

“Those Members of Parliament may probably have thought it is Sachin Tendulkar. They did not know it was Suresh Tendulkar,” Mr. Ramesh told reporters, when asked about several MPs criticising the methodology adopted by the Tendulkar Committee set up in the year 2005 by the Planning Commission to suggest criteria for determining poverty line and poverty estimation.

Coming to the rescue of the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, who was the target of attack both inside and outside Parliament after the panel put out the poverty numbers, Mr. Ramesh claimed the rate of poverty reduction after 2004 has been double the rate of poverty reduction in previous 10 years.

Sourece: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3290811.ece

Glimpses of National Workshop on Urban poverty ( 22nd-23rd March 2012)

Centre needs 2.3L cr to fund RTE initiative!

New Delhi: With the Supreme Court bringing all recognized schools under the Right to Education (RTE) Act,the government will have to boost spending on its flagship programme to meet the estimated Rs 2.3 lakh crore needed to fund the initiative over 2010-2014.

RTE has been plagued with fund shortfalls with budgetary provision in the last two years being only half of what was estimated.The HRD ministry received Rs 21,000 crore in 2011-12 instead of Rs 43,903 crore.The allocation has gone up only marginally to Rs 25,000 crore in the current 2012-13 budget.

The estimated Rs 2.3 lakh crore,to be shared between Centre and states according to a 65:35 ratio,is also expected to go up as it does not include subsidy the government is to pay private schools to implement a 25% quota for economically disadvantaged students.

RTE incorporates the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the ministry had estimated it would need an allocation of Rs 48,000 crore in the current fiscal.Initially,the government had calculated it would need Rs 40,500 crore in the first year of implementation.

According to educationist Vinod Raina,a key member of the RTE team,RTE in general suffers from a financial crunch and there has also been a problem of states not being able to spend the funds allocated.There have also been constraints of teacher shortages.

The RTE rollout has been hampered by a resource crunch and infrastructure bottlenecks,for which the government has not always been to blame.

MEGA ROLLOUT

RTE spending budgeted over 2010-2014 Total RTE bill put at 2.31 lakh cr;share of Centre and states in ratio of 65:35 Total RTE bill almost 5 times Indias allocation for school education ( 48,781cr) in Budget 2012-13 It is more than Indias total annual subsidies of 1.9 lakh crore It is also larger than Indias estimated income tax receipts of 1.96 lakh cr in 2012-13

Source:http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspxpageid=3&pagesize=&edid=&edlabel=CAP&mydateHid=14-04-2012&pubname=&edname=&publabel=TOI 

Insight into the situation prevailing in cities of intervention!

A National Workshop on Urban Poverty: Whittling or Withstanding  has been organized in the National Capital from 22nd-23rd March 2012 as a part of the Golden Jubilee celebration of Caritas India. The two day workshop has accentuated on various aspects of urban poverty and priortising Urban poverty as key concern to addressed by concerned government institutions, NGOs, activists and individuals.

Taking the follow-up of the “National Workshop on Urban poverty” Caritas India team along with the IGSSS-Delhi team has developed a document ( questionnaire) to analyse slum situation where intervention is needed. We request you all to go through the document and could use the same to analyse slum situation in your respective districts/areas. Hope this document would give you all an idea about moving foreword to take urban poverty situation as on priority basis.

1. Identifying slum situation

·         No. of poverty pockets (PP - slums) and the CityMakers (Urban workers in poverty pockets, Homeless Residents)

·         What are the major issues affecting the people  (CityMakers) and PP? Studies (govt.;  CSOs; Academic researches)

·         Any schemes that reach them? Any policies / High court orders/ judgements – positive / negative? Are people aware  of these?

·         Evictions – faced or facing

2. Migration-employment & unemployment

·         What all are the existing employment and unemployment situation in slums?

·         Average income of families living in slums?

·         Places from where they have migrated to the particular slum?

·         Average staying period in slums?

3. Government programmes

·         Programmes been implemented by government in the particular slum

·         Average % of the CityMakers getting the benefits of the government programmes?

·         Basic hurdles and facilities in availing government schemes benefits?

3. Role of CSOs and Media in mitigation urban poverty

·         How many CSOs are working with the CityMakers ? Is there any network that looks into this?

·         Does media engage with  this issue regularly?

·         Role of civil society, students (schools, colleges, Universities), volunteers, middle class, retired persons (bureaucrats, media, academics,… ), home makers, professional groups, corporates (chambers of commerce – CII, FICCI, PHDCC, ASOCHAM,), academics, …

4. Any other issue?

Why burden us, ask private schools?

New Delhi, April 12 2012: Today's Supreme Court judgment saying all private schools other than unaided minority schools must reserve one in four seats for poor children has provoked dismay in private schools.

Principals of leading private schools in Delhi said the 25 per cent reservation would impose a severe financial burden on them.

"The government should take care of education for the poor. Why cannot the government open new schools? Why are they pushing the 25 per cent burden onto us?" said Madhulika Sen, principal of Tagore International School, one of several institutions that had petitioned the apex court seeking relief from the 25 per cent rule.

However, the government says the judgment has brought clarity to the implementation of the Right to Education Act, which mandates free and compulsory education for every Indian child.

"The private schools do not get any aid from the government, but we give government pay scale to our teachers," Sen said. "We pay electricity, water and property tax at commercial rates. The pressure on us to implement the reservation would affect quality."

The government will reimburse the private schools at a rate equivalent to what it spends on a child's education at its own schools: between Rs 6,000 and Rs 17,000 a year. This is far lower than what the leading private schools charge in cities: Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh per student per year.

"We have to provide textbooks and uniforms to the children too," Sen said, adding that at her school, the textbooks and uniforms cost around Rs 5,000 a year per child. "The government's reimbursement rate in Delhi is Rs 1,190 per child per month, which comes to around Rs 14,000 a year. After spending on textbook and uniform, only Rs 9,000 will be left. How can you manage with this?"

Sen said schools cannot offset the cost by raising the fees for the remaining 75 per cent students since the Delhi's regulations bar schools from increasing fees by more than 10 per cent per year. Another option is to increase the student intake. "But schools are not-for-profit institutions; we do not have the money to expand the facilities," Sen said. government

The Forum for Quality Education, a body of private institutions that had moved the apex court, has not decided what it will do next. "We will meet soon to decide our (course of) action," Sen said.

Usha Ram, principal of Laxman Public School, said: "The government should compensate (private schools) in a proper manner. The compensation should be the same as what the private schools charge students on an average," she said.

The government will issue separate guidelines for private residential schools since the present reimbursement rate would be too low for them, considering the costs of board and lodging.

A key part of the judgment is the exemption given to unaided minority institutions, who are granted this status by the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) or state governments. However, certain communities that are minorities at the national level are majorities in some states.

"Schools run by Christians in Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland and those run by Sikhs in Punjab may not get the exemption from the reservation," former NCMEI member J.C. Kurian said.

HRD minister Kapil Sibal said: "We are grateful to the Supreme Court for providing clarity.

Courtsey: http://in.news.yahoo.com/why-burden-us-ask-private-schools-221017641.html 

Homeless find cold comfort in dump, cops say clear out

Unable to bear the cold and haunted by a death in the group, 25 homeless people cleared a garbage dump in south Delhi and pitched two tents for shelter at night. Three days later, they are again staring at cold nights, out in the open.

With no place available in the packed

Lodhi Road

night shelter, they turned to an NGO, which has an office in the area, for help.

"These people have been sleeping on the footpaths for the past few months. As it grew cold in the last few days, we decided to clear the garbage dump and put up a temporary shelter,” said Indu Prakash Singh, technical adviser to Indo-Global Social Service Society that set up the makeshift shelter.

On January 6 when the city shivered in winter rain, the group moved into the shelter.

"One person died of cold. Now, at least we have a roof over our heads," said Raj Kumar, a rickshaw puller who stays in the shelter.

Though temporary, the arrangement was guarding them against cold, said Singh. "Had the government constructed adequate number of permanent shelters, we wouldn't been forced to take such a step."

As soon as the tarpaulins were in place, police officials came for an inspection. "They asked us to remove the sheets as we didn't have the permission, but we refused to comply," said Singh.

Police officials said they wanted to check if the group had encroached land. "We just wanted to make sure that it wasn't illegal," said a senior official on condition of anonymity.

The city has 132 night shelters -- 54 short of the 186 ordered by the high court -- that can accommodate 12,400 people. Estimates put the number of homeless in the Capital at 1.5 lakh.

Recently, the Supreme Court took states, including Delhi, to task for failing to comply with its 2009 order on night shelters. States have been asked to file detailed response by January 14.

courtsey:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Homeless-find-cold-comfort-in-dump-cops-say-clear-out/Article1-794404.aspx

Tears of joy...

By:  Mr.Indu prakash singh

(indu@igsss.net, i2weness@gmail.com, www.induprakashsingh.com, Mobile:  9911362925)

Indo-Global Social Service Society {IGSSS} (10^th Jan., 2012, 01:22 am)

Tears of joy welled my eyes, to see the CityMakers (homeless citizens) families: children, youth, women , men, elderly ... being elated to sleep peacefully  in a shelter. A shelter that we created / crafted , by involving the CityMakers (CMs) themselves.  A roof and walls – all of canvas, and it became a home.  We had for a long been toying with the idea of creating this shelter, in front of our office, open  space, owned by the Government -- we the people of India.

Just in few hours, the shelter was up and running from 6^th Jan., 2012. A night when it rained heavily, the CMs, around 20 of them had a place  to protect themselves.

It also came up due to:

1.      Our total acceptance of CMs, as one of us, deserving all the rights and entitlements

2.      Our over more than 12 long years of engagement with the CMs

3.      A deep faith in ourselves, humanity, love, care and concern for the ones who have missed crossing the threshold of prosperity, joy, happiness .... To be consigned to the dustbins of development.  Doormated, dispelled, dehabilitated,   doomed, destituted,  devastated ....

4.      An outrage at the ill treatment meted out by police (inhuman beatings and torture) and government agencies

5.      RWAs and Plot Holders Associations having closed their heart to the CMs and the Constitution of India

6.      High costs of putting up shelters (thin tin cold storages – Trishankus {neither on firm stable ground, nor in the sky, closer to Moon, as one builder, Supertech advertised})

7.      Government opening shelters at places where the CMs never are, or never can reach or never can access

I’ve never been so happy (in the last more than a decade) as today, to see this structure, called home. Though tenuous, yet  remarkably  comforting; at no cost, but saving lives;  with no amenities, yet welcome;  no managers, still running or rather self – managed ....

Is it too much to dream, the same dream, that our freedom fighters dreamt of, while throwing out the British colonialists? That our very own Constitution of India, proclaims -“WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into  a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic  and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation.”

Can government give up the stratagems that it’s wont to play? : 

1.      First not doing its task of preparing  a long term plan and  opening permanent shelter, as asked by both the Apex court of the country (on 20^th Jan 2010, The Supreme Court of India ordered “ Direct the Government of Delhi, the Muncipal Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and Cantonment Board to set up at least 140 permanent shelters for people living on the streets by December, 2010.”) and the High Court of Delhi (13.1.2010 & 22.1.2010), way back in January 2010.

2.      Then calling the NGOs corrupt (stated in Minutes prepared by MNGO of the meeting on 3^rd Sept., 2011: “On 30^th August Dr Amod met the new CEO, DUSIB, Mr. Ashwani. He explained that the DUSIB is willing to run the shelters as per the court’s decision but it will not make any payment to the NGOs after the month of April. He expressed his deep unhappiness about the role of the NGOs in the entire matter and considered many of the NGOs to be corrupt.”)

3.       Using MNGO (St. Stephen’s Hospital ) to battle with NGOs on behalf of the government,   and refusing to pay for over nine months (until the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi intervened {six times in the past from 6^th July, 2011 onwards } and noted on 13.12.2011 finally, that DUSIB will pay the NGOs on 14^th Dec., 2011) and,

4.      Ultimately giving the shelters (permanent (62), temporary{40 tin, 9 tents, 11 BVKs – basti vikas kendras}) to NGOs to run.

We are committed to creating shelters spaces all over Delhi, and permanent one at that. We are grateful to the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi for  taking up the cause of the CityMakers (homeless citizens), bereft of any care and concern of the Government.  Had it not been for the Courts, many CityMakers wouldn’t have survived to see 2012. We need to save lives, very precious indeed! We all need to join hands, in making Delhi and other cities of India and the world, a home for all!

Time to create more such homes, in our hearts, then  with hearths,  and a song full of hope that will craft homes for all, health for all, food for all, education  for all, livelihood for all adults....  All in all!

 

Urban India Reality

•         Currently, 286 million Indians live in urban areas which constitute 28% population. 

•         As per the latest National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey reports there are over 80 million poor people living in cities and towns of India who are mainly migrants.

•         The Slum population has also been increasing and as per TCPO estimates 2001, over 61.80 million people live in slums.

•         Mumbai and Delhi are among the top six  cities as world’s largest urban agglomerations. In 2005, Mumbai had a population of 18,196,000 while Delhi was inhabited by 15,048,000 people. 

•         Currently, there is a shortage of 27.71 mn (As per govt figures at the end of 10th Five Year Plan)+1.82mn (during the 11th plan end, 2012)  = 26.53 million housing shortage.  99.9 per cent of the shortage effects the EWS and LIG (This is a classic case of skewed prioritisation of govt. E.g. DDA caters to HIG, MIG and housing is unaffordable for LIG and very poor. This forces people to live in precarious conditions - on streets, slums, etc. Govt. Driving people into illegalities through eviction drives.)

Characteristics of slum

Slums are usually characterized by urban blight and by high rates of poverty and unemployment. They tend to be breeding centers for many social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, high rates of mental illness and suicide, and despair. In many poor countries they exhibit high rates of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health care. In many slums, especially in poor countries, many live in very narrow alleys that do not allow vehicles (like ambulances and fire trucks) to pass. The lack of services such as routine garbage collection allows rubbish to accumulate in huge quantities. The lack of infrastructure is caused by the informal nature of settlement and no planning for the poor by government officials. Additionally, informal settlements often face the brunt of natural and man-made disasters, such as landslides, as well as earthquakes and tropical storms. Many slum dwellers employ themselves in the informal economy. This can include street vending, drug dealing, domestic work, and prostitution. In some slums people even recycle trash of different kinds (from household garbage to electronics) for a living - selling either the odd usable goods or stripping broken goods for parts or raw materials. Slums may be called by various names, Favelas, Kampungs, Tugurios, yet share the same miserable living conditions.

Slums do not have:

·         Basic municipal services - water, sanitation, waste collection, storm drainage, street lighting, paved footpaths, roads for emergency access.

·         Schools and clinics within reach, safe areas for children to play.

·         Places for the community to meet and socialize.

Slums are worsening:

·         As the average age of people in cities is increasing, the average age of slum dwellers is decreasing, so the youth suffer most from unhealthful conditions.

·         Visible disparities between slums and better-off neighbourhoods increase the social tensions in poorer areas.

·          Unplanned growth of settlements makes conventional service provision complicated.

About 2.6 million people live in slum designated areas across Delhi^. Slum is basically a dense populated area of substandard housing, usually in a city, characterized by unsanitary conditions and social disorganization.