THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 25 October 2018 (India’s failure to address its urban slum problem)

India’s failure to address its urban slum problem

Mains Paper: 1 | Society
Prelims level: Indian urbanization
Mains level: Yet another attempt to redevelop Dharavi must take the lessons of past failures on board

Context

Dharavi is shorthand for the challenges and complexities of Indian urbanization.
Various attempts over the decades to redevelop the slum occupying prime real estate in the heart of Mumbai have foundered on those complexities.
The Maharashtra government signed off on the latest initiative.
A special purpose vehicle with 80% private and 20% government stake to redevelop Dharavi as a whole rather than in separate sub-clusters as previously envisioned.
If it is to make any headway, it must take on board past lessons.
Slum redevelopment is something of a Rorschach test.
At one end of the spectrum are the Jane Jacobs maximalists who take the urban studies pioneer’s credo of community-based urban planning and activism to an incoherent extreme.
The latter is undoubtedly a marvel of India’s informal economy.
Concrete numbers are hard to come by but, by most estimates, half-a-million people or so live in the 230 hectares the slum occupies.
A vast number and range of micro and small enterprises, ranging from leather and textiles to recycling, have an annual turnover in the $1 billion range.

Historical underpinning regarding to slum problem in India

India has flirted with such policies as well.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, forced demolition and relocation was common in various states.
The Maharashtra government’s Maharashtra Vacant Lands Act 1975 was particularly draconian. Such policies ignore basic economic logic.
Internal migration is a driver of growth and development, particularly in an economy like India’s where a large chunk of the rural population is seasonally employed in agriculture.
More, urban India’s growth is built on the back of cheap labour in everything from construction to domestic work.
Various combinations of rent control, opaque and distorted land markets, stifling regulation and laughably low floor space indexes have resulted in a severe lack of affordable housing in India’s premier cities.
Slums are the natural outcome.
Demolition policies degrade urban economies.

Way out

There are many hurdles, both major and minor.
The lack of adequate data and land titles in Dharavi and other slums meant expensive, time-consuming delays were common.
Failure to take slum dweller representatives on board meant that the informal economic networks underlying Dharavi’s economy would be disrupted by the redevelopment.
The lack of common standards meant that the housing built for slum dwellers was often of execrable quality.
The problem of slum dwellers selling or leasing the houses and returning to their previous housing, poor quality, unaffordable maintenance costs and disrupted networks often had a role to play here.

Conclusion

This wouldn’t work in those Indian cities where governance quality is poor; it would allow municipalities to abandon their responsibilities.
However, is that unless the new redevelopment plan takes Dharavi’s residents on board and addresses the socioeconomic fallout of relocation, it will be unlikely to succeed.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Consider the following statements regarding Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK):

1. The programme aims at early detection of defects, deficiency, diseases and disabilities.
2. It covers children in the age group of 0 -18 years.
3. It is being implemented in both urban and rural areas.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: D