Slums are areas of inadequate and substandard housing where urban poor live, characterized by overcrowding and lack of infrastructure. They demonstrate multiple deprivations like uncertain employment, inadequate access to necessities. Urban poor experience poverty in aspects like inadequate income, assets, shelter, infrastructure, services and protection of rights. Lack of access to water and sanitation reinforces inequality and health issues. The urban poor are forced to live on marginal land and informal settlements with threat of eviction, making them vulnerable to external shocks.

1. By: Iram Aziz
SLUMS

2. Slums are associated with Urban Poor!!!

3. “Space and light and order
These are the things that men need
Just as much as they need
Bread or a place to sleep.”
- Le Corbusier

4. Concept of Slums

5. • The concept of slums and its definition vary from country to
country depending upon the socio-economic conditions of
each society.
• Irrespective of location, whether in the core of the city, in the
form of old dilapidated structures or in the out-skirts, in the
form of squatting.
• Physically, an area of the city with inadequate housing,
deficient facilities, overcrowding and congestion.
• Socially, a slum is a way of life, a special character which has its
own set of norms and values reflected in poor sanitation,
health values, health practices, deviant behaviour and social
isolation.

6. Characterisation of Slums

7. • Slums is defined as that area where the buildings are in any
respect unfit for human habitation; or by reason or
dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement of buildings,
streets, lack of ventilation, light or sanitation facilities or
combination of these factors, are detrimental to safety, health
or morals (Slums Improvement and Clearance Act, 1956).
• Approximately, 68.8% of the country's slums of this population
reside in the remaining 3300 urban centers.
• Urbanization has been considered as an index of development
but in case of developing countries like India, urbanization is
not the outcome of merely the growth potential generated by
urban settlements.

8. Slums often demonstrate a concentration of multiple
deprivations experienced by the urban poor;
1. Uncertain employment & inadequate income
2. Inadequate access to drinking water
3. Inadequate food
4. Inadequate clothing
5. Inadequate safe & secure shelter/ housing
6. Inadequate provision for land
7. Inadequate provision for infrastructure facilities & utilities
– Education instts.
– Health centres
– Sanitation - toilets and water taps.
– Drainage & Sewage
– Transportation
8. Excluded from achieving their political, social and economic
rights.

9. URBAN POOR

10. 61.8
46
28
Source: Annual Report 2006-07, MoHUPA

11. Nature of Poverty and Exclusion
in Urban Areas

12. Satterthwaite (2002: 3) lists eight aspects of urban poverty;
1. Inadequate income (and thus inadequate consumption of necessities including
food and, often, safe and sufficient water; often problems of indebtedness, with
debt repayments significantly reducing income available for necessities).
2. Inadequate, unstable or risky asset base (non-material and material including
educational attainment and housing) for individuals, households or
communities.
3. Inadequate shelter (typically poor quality, overcrowded and insecure).
4. Inadequate provision of ‘public’ infrastructure (piped water, sanitation,
drainage, roads, footpaths, etc.) which increases the health burden and often
the work burden.
5. Inadequate provision of basic services such as day care/schools/vocational
training, healthcare, emergency services, public transport, communications, law
enforcement.
6. Limited or no safety net to ensure basic consumption can be maintained when
income falls; also to ensure access to shelter and healthcare when these can no
longer be paid for.

13. Satterthwaite (2002: 3) lists eight aspects of urban poverty,
5. Inadequate protection of poorer groups’ rights through the operation of the
law: including laws and regulations regarding civil and political rights,
occupational health and safety, pollution control environmental health,
protection from violence and other crimes, protection from discrimination and
exploitation.
6. Poorer groups’ voicelessness and powerlessness within political systems and
bureaucratic structures, leading to little or no possibility of receiving
entitlements; of organising, making demands and getting a fair response; and of
receiving support for developing their own initiatives. Also, no means of
ensuring accountability from aid agencies, NGOs, public agencies and private
utilities and being able to participate in the definition and implementation of
their urban poverty programmes.

14. Right to Water & Sanitation!

15. The impact of inadequate access to water
and sanitation include:
• health impacts of diseases (faecal-oral, water-washed, water-
based and water-related insect vector).
• reinforcing inequality and poverty (time and monetary costs of
access, loss of productive/educational time).
• reinforcing vulnerability and exclusion (e.g. among women,
children, the elderly, those already suffering from ill-health or
disability).

16. Poverty Measurement

17. Income-based
poverty lines are
often set too low in
relation to higher
costs of ‘non-food
essentials’ in many
urban areas (including
housing, water, other
goods and services).

18. Source: facenfacts.com

19. Basis….. Justified?!
Source: The Hindu, Feb 19 ‘2012

20. Who decides for Whom?!

21. “ I will give you a Talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when the
self becomes too much with you, apply the following test:
Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have
seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of
any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a
control over his own life and destiny? In other word, will it lead to
Swaraj for hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
21

22. Attitude problem…
Source: emahomagzine.com
poverty

23. Difference in Reality…
Source: The Hindu

24. Right to Shelter!

25. • The poor are least able to access or secure land, both
for financial reasons and because formal systems do
not recognise their often informal contributions to city
life.
• The urban poor are frequently forced to live on
marginal/ hazardous land and/or in locations which are
distant from places of work, services and often poorly
served by public transport.
• The threat of eviction limits people’s willingness to
further invest in housing and infrastructure, and can
lead to psychological pressures from fear and
uncertainty.

26. • Because many of the urban poor are forced to live on
marginal land, in unsafe environments and in poor
quality housing, they are particularly vulnerable to
natural disasters.
• They are also least able to withstand external shocks
compared with the rest of the urban population, due to
an inadequate asset base and/or social and financial
safety nets.
• This vulnerability applies as much to withstanding and
recovering from environmental/physical shocks as it
does to dealing with sudden social and economic
changes (including forced eviction).