Jawed Khurshid

While megacities offer jobs to carpet-baggers, they are not so generous when it comes to housing. The most obvious fall-out of the increasing population is the proliferation of slums, a bane of the cities of all developing countries.

In Mumbai alone, there are approximately 16,565,459 people living in slums, constituting a phenomenal 48.87 per cent of the total population of the city. The financial hub of the country cannot provide a pukka roof to almost half of its population! The other cities do not fare any better.

Most people categorize slums as an eyesore. But they are much more than that. Usually, slums mushroom around the commercial centres of the city, the obvious choice for people looking out for jobs. Since they are unplanned, they eat into the civic infrastructure that was not meant for them, be it water supply, power, health services, transport or open spaces. The infrastructure of any such centre caters to a certain number of people anticipated by the urban local bodies. However, as the population owing to squatters escalates, the existing infrastructure finds itself under tremendous pressure.

As this pressure on urban infrastructure escalates, the second casualty is water and electricity supply. Those who manage to acquire a house, find themselves struggling for water and electricity. According to the recently released data of housing by Census of India, 87 per cent of the urban houses have an electricity connection. However, such figures can be misleading. With a limited supply of electricity, the industries and residential areas of the cities constantly find themselves competing for water and power supply.

As for supply of drinking water, even today 16.2 per cent of urban houses depend on hand pump, 7.7 per cent on wells and 5.1 per cent on tube wells.

Expanding population also brings with the logistical problem of waste management. So how are the civic authorities managing the waste produced by the teeming millions? Here are some facts, courtesy Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Of India’s 3,700 towns and cities, only eight have wastewater collection and treatment facilities and 209 have partial treatment facilities.

Organized sewage system coverage ranges between 35 per cent to 75 per cent in different towns and cities.

Solid waste collection and management system in most Indian (barring a few metro cities) cities is yet to be formalized and made professional.

Not a promising picture by any stretch of imagination.