URBAN POOR

A collective of various voluntary groups, civil society organisations, activists, educators and students has demanded urgent state-led action to uphold the right to shelter and dignity for persons living on the streets in Tamil Nadu. This campaign has been initiated by the Information and Resource Centre of the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC) and other NGOs in Chennai and across the State, to support homeless people, whose lives are jeopardised by the absence of a dedicated state programme. Here are the recommendations put forward as part of the campaign: State-wide recommendations Tamil Nadu must urgently evolve a state-specific scheme for persons…

As the monsoon continues to wreak havoc in Mumbai, residents of Appa Pada, living along the slopes of the Malad hillocks within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), are among the worst affected. As soon as the rainy season begins, they find eviction notices pasted on their doors. The Forest Department also erects banners warning residents to vacate the area because of monsoon-related hazards. These notices seem to absolve the government of any responsibility in the event of an accident.   Appa Pada continues to be susceptible to landslides, posing danger to the hillock’s inhabitants. Despite this, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation…

Housing has become a battleground in Bengaluru, where developers target every profitable corner of the city. The Ejipura EWS housing complex stands as a stark example of this. A site once home to urban poor families, this was violently cleared in 2013-14 following a Karnataka High Court order. The court order resulted in the demolition of the quarters and the subsequent eviction of the occupants. The legality of the eviction and the delay in redevelopment continue to throw up important questions, but equally urgent is a focus on the lives of the evicted families, many of whom moved to Sulikunte…

Every time the city floods, which is every year, Mumbaikars find their own ways to deal with it. Despite preventive measures by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), such as desilting storm water drains or making underground water storage tanks, besides putting up pumping machines, floods continue to be a monsoon routine for Mumbai. Rich or poor, slum dwellers or high risers, there is no escaping the impact of floods on the lives and livelihoods of Mumbaikars. And as we saw in our earlier story, those who have their homes on the periphery of rivers like Dahisar are often the worst…

Two summers ago, even with the fans on, sweat would trickle down Rupali Devi’s face and body relentlessly.  Now, she can sit home and eat a meal in peace, without having to wipe sweat off every few minutes. Rupali, 23, lives in a 128 sq ft house at Nargis Dutt Nagar slum in Mumbai’s Bandra West with her parents and five siblings. With an asbestos sheet for a roof in a congested neighbourhood, summers felt hotter than they actually were. According to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), between the decades of 2001-10 and 2014-23, Mumbai’s…

Following the disastrous deluge that hit Mumbai on July 26, 2005 and claimed 419 lives, the state introduced several measures to prevent such flooding in the future in Mumbai. The Chitale Committee, which was commissioned to find solutions for flooding in Mumbai recommended a series of measures, such as improving Mumbai’s hydrological planning to help the city’s rivers find their way into the sea and prevent them from overflowing into the city and endangering lives during the heavy Mumbai monsoons.  While this exercise mostly called for rejuvenating the rivers, one of the first moves by the authorities involved building retaining…

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…

[Part 1 of this series covered the poor state of homeless shelters in Bengaluru. In Part 2, we look at who is responsible for this, and why.] “We can’t work anymore because of our age. Where will we get food?” asks Nataraj*, an elderly, retired watchman living in a homeless shelter in Yeshwanthpur. As per the Shelter for Urban Homeless Scheme (SUH) under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), residents up to 10% of the shelter's capacity should be given free food, prioritising the elderly and sick. But for months, most shelters in Bengaluru have not been doing…

Namrata (name changed to protect identity) migrated from West Bengal to Bengaluru 15 years ago in search of a better livelihood. She is a domestic worker, and her husband is a waste picker. Though their livelihood has improved, the quality of life is still poor. The informal settlement in Belagere, where Namrata has been living for the past nine years, floods after each rainfall. “Water rises to our hip level, and we cannot sleep most nights if it rains,” she said. Also, stormwater drains run on two sides of the settlement. Wastewater from the drains mixes with floodwater, causing children…

As Odisha’s Jaga Mission progressed, the vision expanded from developing slums into liveable habitats with the active participation of the community, to developing the upgraded slums as empowered units of hyperlocal self-governance. The highlights of participatory slum transformation were discussed in the first part of this series. Taking forward the idea of collaborative problem solving, the Mission now sought to put in place systems to institutionalise decentralised participatory governance in the upgraded slum neighbourhoods. The objective was to transfer the management of neighbourhoods, encompassing the 4 lakh slum households across 115 cities in the state, to the Slum Dwellers Associations…