We keep looking for solutions because the obvious solutions are too ardous. We think we will find some simpler, easier solution to this great issue. But its as simple as:
1. Providing resettlement options
2. Improving infrastructure to whatever extent possible in existing slums
3. Keeping an eye out for potential slums
4. Going to the root of the matter – overall progress and development
5. Land rights for slum dwellers allowing upgradation and access to basic utilities

One solution wont work for all slums, or even for all people within one slum – the slum-dwellers need to be involved in the decisions and planning and be given options, choices and empowered to improve their lot.

Thanks for this post, which explains some things a lot more clearly than I could have. A couple of clarifications: I don’t at all believe you “took over” my comments section, and I would never consider email from you spam.

My basic point in this comment is to agree with this: resettling slum residents has never worked, and the way it is pursued now, it will never work. Slums will persist as long as it’s assumed that the way to address the issue is to remove the slums and shunt residents “out” (wherever that is); as long as job opportunities in rural areas continue to lag; as long as rental housing in cities remains expensive and in short supply; and as long as slum residents are seen as “encroachers”, somehow superfluous to the urban economy instead of an integral part of it.

You’ve covered much of what I’d have liked to say, so I won’t repeat. But as for solutions, I would add that slum residents should somehow get secure title to their land.

I have also heard from some slum residents who have moved into buildings how they miss the social interaction they used to have. But for at least some of the families I spoke to, the convenience and benefits of their new flats were weightier considerations.

I read a news report some time back about former slum dwellers missing the interaction in their new apartments and going back to their slums. This was either in Mumbai or Delhi, and I can’t find the article now, or I would have linked to it.

Edit: I have found the article now, and I will link it up in the main post also.

Having said that, do you have any references to back your claim there being more interaction among slum-dwellers, or is it purely anecdotal? (I am curious and not questioning this claim, so please don’t get my tone wrong.)

Narendra Shenoy: Your argument is exactly the same argument for cross-subsidization that Dilip D’Souza talks about – he explains why it will never work. (Free government land is also a subsidy).

Again, we are only talking about resettlement here, but the slum dwellers will only move if employment opportunities are available in the new place.

Vivek and BPSK : I agree, to look at this issue comprehensively, we should also look at the issue of why people migrate into cities in the first place.

I agree that failure of agriculture is a big cause. Lack of proper irrigation, GM crops, lack of crop insurance or financing, and many more issues that we in the cities are not even aware of because the press devotes so little space to rural India.

Education and health care are also not available in the villages. The government should definitely address all these issues and improve infrastructure in rural India. Improving rural infrastructure and creating tax incentives should definitely move some businesses into villages/ small towns and create more employment opportunities in rural India.

But until all this happens, people will continue to pour into the cities, so improving the existing infrastructure in slums should also happen simultaneously.

My second suggestion also addresses the issue of new migrants. The government should proactively create planned areas (with employment opportunities nearby) where new development can take place, so newer migrants have better conditions to live in, and so they don’t occupy existing slums.

The Slum dweller is an ‘Internal Refugee’. He doesnt belong to the metropolis that he resides in. He is a migrant from some other part of India. He comes to the city in search of livelihood. He is unable to find opportunities to earn in his village. The bulk of India’s growth is happening in the cities. If we do a demographic profile of the slum dweller in Mumbai (by region), you will find that he is largely from those states which have a lower Development Index.

Some of the things that we need to focus on are (not a complete list)

- Reasons for failure of Agriculture. This is a major cause why farmers migrate to cities in search of alternative livelihood.

- Even the slum dweller knows that his next generation need not live in the slums if his kids are properly educated. he is willing to spend on Education. The Government must provide the infrastructure. There is a lot of policy framed by successive governments about increasing Govt’s education budget in the 10th Plan to 6% of GDP. The Tenth Plan ended in 2007 – the budget has not yet crossed 2%

The Slum inhabitant is not a fixed number. Building any infrastructure for Dharavi is not an end by itself. The existing inmates will move to whatever is provided, but their place will be taken up by more migrants. This will continue unless we address the root cause – livelihood in the villages. Clearly, the trickle down effect isnt working yet. The inequality between the haves and have-nots is increasing. Simon Kuznet postulates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve) that inequality will initially increase and decrease subsequently. Can we afford to wait that long ?

In my view, the solution lies in India’s villages and not in the cities.