Meenakshi (name changed), migrated from Tamil Nadu to Bengaluru 18 years ago and now lives in a steel shed in Laggere. During rains, she collects the water leaking through her roof in pots to prevent flooding in the house. The situation is the same with almost all of her neighbours.
“I used to cover the roof with tarpaulins but they wear off soon. And I can’t afford to change them often,” Meenakshi said. She complained that the shed gets unbearably hot during summers and chilly during rains. “I spend most days of summer outside the house as it would be cooler than inside, but how can I shelter myself during rains?” she asks.
Leaky roofs and health concerns in monsoons
The shed Meenakshi lives in is part of Lakshmi Devi Nagar, one of the biggest declared slums in Bengaluru. Declared slums are slums formally recognised by the Karnataka Slum Development Board (KSDB).
Though the Slum Board itself had built four-storeyed quarters here for residents, these are dilapidated and some have even been demolished. Currently, more than 16,000 families live in three types of houses here — four-storey buildings, individual houses and metal sheds. The majority of residents live in the quarters, but the steel sheds and individual houses too accommodate significant numbers of people.
Residents of all housing categories here raise the same complaints. During monsoons, water seeps through ceilings and walls, mud roads turn into slush, and kids often fall sick as a stormwater drain runs right through the settlement.
Sheds residents got no quarters despite paying advance
Most slum residents are from marginalised communities – Muslims, people belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, daily wagers, waste pickers, construction workers and migrants. Many were also relocated here as part of slum clearance projects.
Eviction and delay in providing houses, poor quality of the buildings, lack of roads and formal electricity supply put them at risk during rains.
Meenakshi, in fact, had better housing until a few years ago. When she arrived in Bengaluru 18 years ago, she started living in one of the four-storeyed buildings. When her husband died 10 years ago due to a heart attack, she chose to stay in the quarters, believing it would keep her safe.
But four years ago, the Slum Board demolished her building as it had become too old and unsafe. The Board built and allotted steel sheds to the evicted residents as temporary housing, and promised them new houses within two years. However, construction hasn’t begun even after four years.
Read more: Lack of stormwater drain planning in Bengaluru is a risk factor for future floods
All families living in the steel sheds are among the list of beneficiaries to be allotted quarters, and have paid an advance of ₹10,000 each, including Meenakshi. Under the ‘Housing for All’ scheme, beneficiaries should pay ₹1,00,000 in instalments for a house – ₹10,000 in advance, and the rest after allotment.
Steel sheds lack basic facilities
The residents of 3-5 sheds have to share one toilet. The sheds are close to each other, with no proper ventilation.
Meenakshi’s house is one of 80-100 sheds in a row. In the opposite row are 50-60 more sheds, mostly occupied by families relocated here from Shivaji Nagar 20 years ago. Their sheds are built adjoining the wall and fence of a major stormwater drain (rajakaluve). This is despite the rule that no construction is allowed within the 50-m buffer zone of a rajakaluve. The rajakaluve is also a mosquito breeding ground, and residents said their children often fall ill with fever.
Even concrete houses are unsafe in monsoons
The situation is no better in the four-storeyed quarters. These buildings have broken windows, damp walls, and stagnant water in the premises. Rafeeba was allotted a flat in the ground floor of one of the four-storey buildings. Her son and his family were allotted another flat on the top floor. “During heavy rains, the underground sumps can’t hold the excess water and it ends up flooding my house through the toilet,” she said. Now she lives in her son’s flat. But many houses on the top floor have started showing signs of dampness, creating a sense of insecurity among residents.
All the electricity meter boxes in these buildings are empty, and contact numbers of electricians are written on some walls. The existing quarters in the settlement are about 12 years old. Residents say Slum Board allotted these without arranging electricity connections, and that they have to draw power informally from an electric post nearby. These lines often get damaged during rains. “We have to spend at least ₹500 every couple of months to fix the electrical lines. During heavy rains, we go without electricity for two to three days,” complained Parvathy, another resident.
Manjubai, Organisation Convenor at Slum Janadolana, an organisation working for slum dwellers’ rights, says many of the quarters are not liveable. “Residents either have to fix problems by themselves or should visit the slum board office and raise a complaint. But most of them are daily wage workers, they can’t do it and follow up with the officials,” she said.
The situation is slightly better in the individual houses in another part of the settlement, but only if the residents themselves can pay for concrete roofs. KSDB provided these houses with asbestos roofing. While some households have managed to build concrete roofs on their own, those who cannot afford it are forced to live with leaky roofs.
Citizen Matters reached out to several officials from KSDB, but was repeatedly redirected to others. Usha Kiran, Assistant Executive Engineer of Laggere Division at KSDB, did not respond to multiple calls.
The slum residents expect a safe shelter with basic facilities. They demand:
- Houses for those living in the steel sheds
- Frequent repair works at the quarters and individual houses
- Formal electricity supply to all houses
- Proper roads instead of muddy, waterlogged pathways
- Quarters of better construction quality
Caste, topography and ghettoisation
Slum residents in the entire city are living in poor conditions, and Laggere is just one example. Researchers point out that marginalisation happens by deliberately situating these communities in the city’s most vulnerable zones. Sumanto Mondal, an independent researcher focusing on caste demographics in Bengaluru, argues that from medieval times marginalised communities were pushed to low-lying areas that aid the flow of wastewater, which also puts them at risk of unanticipated flooding.
His study ‘Caste Lines in Bengaluru: Settled Outside the Pecking Order’ uses GIS to explore the ghettoisation of oppressed castes, Muslims and migrants. “Bengaluru’s average altitude is 920 m above the sea level, whereas nearly all slums are located at least 35-40 m below that average,” Sumanto said. In the study he observed that slums with high proportions of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe residents are ghettoised in the lowest-lying areas. These areas are most often located at the peripheries of affluent areas that are at higher elevations.
Read more: Shelters for the homeless in Bengaluru expose residents to climate risks
The study mapped elite neighbourhoods considering plot sizes, grid patterns of roads, and the quality of facilities and services. It also mapped the city’s declared slums based on data from the 2011 Census. According to the Census, a disproportionately high number of slum residents are from SC/ST communities. But even these numbers may be conservative estimates given the missing population data of some slums, says Sumanto.
Following are some examples from the study’s findings:
- The average elevation of Malleshwaram is ~945 m. Malleshwaram, one of the city’s elite areas, was reportedly developed as a planned suburb after 1898. In comparison, the average elevation of Malleshwaram slum is ~908 m. This slum line is home to 25 slums, and more than 18,000 of its residents or three-fourth of the population are from SC/ST communities.
- The average elevation of Basavanagudi and Jayanagar is ~932 m. The adjoining slum settlements – Chamarajpet, Kempegowda Nagar and Gavipura – lie at an elevation of 888 to 894 m. These areas have over 15 declared slums, with more than half the population (16,300 people) belonging to SC/ST communities.
- Even Lakshmi Devi Nagar settlement in Laggere lies at a lower elevation – an average of ~890 m.
The sewage from elite areas flows through slums as they are in relatively lower altitudes. Slum dwellers also have to live closer to stormwater drains. “A majority of the pourakarmikas live in these slums. They are expected to keep elite areas clean while their own areas have blocked drains,” Sumanto said.
Slums often lack civic facilities as well, putting them at a risk of extreme climate events. For example, the lack of proper roads and electricity makes monsoons much harder for the Laggere settlement residents than it is for the rest of the city. Sumanto says this is a systematic problem: “The conditions are very poor where the marginalised communities are put up because they are ignorable.”
[Harshitha Padmavinod, reporter at Citizen Matters, contributed to this article.]