Britain is setting up a taskforce to close and clear thousands of illegal extensions to houses in places such as Southall, where many illegal immigrants from India and elsewhere live in slum-like conditions at high rents.
Among the measures planned is “closer working with organisations such as the Indian High Commission to help those wanting to return home", official sources here said.
The first meeting to tackle the issue by taking action against criminal landlords and removing illegal immigrants was scheduled on Monday between Housing minister Grant Shapps and Immigration minister Damian Green.
For many Indian citizens, who brave hazardous journeys across continents and wily human traffickers with hopes of a better life, their 'London dream' often turns into a veritable nightmare, and are reduced to living in slum-like conditions here.
The unhealthy, cramped conditions in which the illegal Indians live have often hit the headlines, with reports that many who destroyed their Indian passports to prevent deportation were trying to re-establishing their identity and obtain new travel documents from the Indian high commission to return home.
Termed 'beds in sheds' and 'modern day shanty towns' in news discourse, the slum-like living conditions are rented out for extortionate rents by ruthless landlords, many of them reported to be of Indian origin.