Slum population likely to be 93.06 million in 2011
The slum population in the country is likely to be 93.06 million in 2011, according to a new estimate carried out by an expert committee headed by principal advisor of Planning Commission, Pronab Sen. The committee was constituted to suggest new definition of slums and prepare a statistical model for arriving at a more reliable data on slum population.
According to the report of the committee on Slum Statistics/Census (CoS), which was released here on Friday by Union minister for housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) Kumari Selja, the slum population, which was earlier believed to be around 52.4 million as per 2001 census, has now come to 75.26 million and in 2011, the project slum population would 93.06 million.
“The earlier data was not highly reliable and there was under-reporting of slums from various states. For any plan on slum improvement and their ultimate removal, we needed more accurate and reliable data,” said Ms Selja.
To a query about whether Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), which aims at slum free India, was achievable within the stipulated five years, Ms Selja said it was achievable provided the states came forward. She added that although the Deepak Parekh Committee had suggested extending the span of RAY from five to 20 years, it all depended on the pace with which the states took forward the programme of RAY. The programme envisages financial help from the Centre for slum upgradation to the states, provided the states grant property ownership rights to the dwellers.
The committee has also brought the settlements, where 20 to 25 households exist without any pre-dominant roof material (any other material other than RCC), availability of drinking water source not being within the premises of the house, latrines not being available within the house and no drainage facility, within the definition of “slums” for the purposes of census. Earlier, the norm used by the Registrar General of India (RGI) was to count a settlement with 60 households with poor basic conditions as a slum.
The committee, constituted in 2008, has also recommended that once the lay out maps are released before the general census in 2011, the RGI should share them with the ministry of HUPA with marking of the contiguous areas having “slum-like characteristics” for use in planning purpose and as an aid to slum surveys.
Ms Selja clarified that the particular definition of slums was only for the Census purposes and the states would be free to have their own definitions of slums. The entire study also incorporated data from all the 5,161 cities/towns in the country.
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