URBAN POOR

"I want a home,” says Dhanashree, a student of Class IX. “It should have a toilet with a door, at least one room spacious enough to stretch my legs and sleep and a kitchen of our own,” she adds. This is not just her dream but also that of hundreds of families in Kannappar Thidal who were evicted from the streets near Ripon Building two decades ago. Evictions in Chennai have become a common affair now with removal of encroachments, eminent domain claims, court orders and developmental projects being cited as reasons by various government bodies to carry out the…

Translated by Sandhya Raju “தங்கள் வாழ்கை நிலை உயரவும் தன் குழந்தைகளுக்கு நல்ல கல்வி பெறவும், தமிழகத்தின் பல இடங்களிலிருந்து சென்னைக்கு பிழைப்பு தேடி வரும் மக்கள் வருகின்றனர். இவ்வாறு வரும் மக்கள், பெரும்பாலும் நதிக்கரை ஒரமாக தங்கள் இருப்பிடத்தை அமைத்துக் கொள்கின்றனர். திடீர் திடீரென இவர்கள் குடிசைகள் தீப்பற்றி எரிவதால், இந்த இடம் “திடீர் நகர்” என அழைக்கப் பெற்றது.” சைதாபேட்டை திடீர் நகரில் வசிக்கும் 60 வயது எஸ் கதிர்வேலன்.  ஆனால், ராஜா அண்ணாமலை புரத்தில் வசிக்கும் எல். விஜயா வேறொரு காரணத்தை முன் வைக்கிறார். “இங்குள்ள பெண்களின் அணிகலங்கள் திடீர் திடீரென காணாமல் போவதாலும், அடிக்கடி குடித்துவிட்டு இங்குள்ள மக்கள் தகராறில் ஈடுபடுவதாலும், இந்த பெயர் காரணம் இருக்கலாம் என கூறுகிறார்.” பெயர் காரணம் எதுவாக இருப்பினும் அங்கு நடக்கும் திடீர் சம்பவங்கள் இவர்கள் வாழ்க்கையை தீர்மானிப்பதாக உள்ளது. திடீர் நகர் சென்னையில் பல பகுதிகளில் இருந்தாலும்,…

"The house feels like a furnace during summers. We live in a very congested space which makes it difficult to sit inside the house and even more difficult for me to cook due to the heat. I get headaches and my kids experience skin problems too," says Guna, a resident of Jyothipura, an urban poor settlement in Bengaluru. Heat stress is not a new concept given the realities of rising local temperatures in India. But Guna’s plight, faced by every family living in tin-roofed houses in informal settlements, reflects the inequitable realities of heat stress in urban India. Houses of…

"Many people from villages across Tamil Nadu came to Chennai to make a living. They moved here with the hope of improving the standard of living for their families and providing good education to their children. These people, who migrated in small groups from rural parts, eventually settled along the banks of rivers or water bodies. They built small huts to reside. The huts were prone to catching fire suddenly at any time and so the area came to be called Thideer Nagar," says S Kathirvelan, a 60-year-old resident of Thideer Nagar in Saidapet. But L Vijaya, a resident of…

"At midnight on August 30th, we woke up to thigh-high water flooding our homes," recalls Bheemesh, a resident of an informal settlement located in Tigalarpalya, adjacent to Brookefield's BEML Layout. "We rushed outside, barely having had the time to collect our things. When we came out, we found out that the entire settlement had been submerged". The last few weeks have been difficult for citizens across various regions in the city. Several bouts of heavy rainfall has inundated roads and flooded residential layouts. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said this was Bengaluru's second wettest August with 369.9mm of rainfall. The…

On August 24th, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis announced that about 17,000 slum dwellers residing around the Mumbai airport would soon be rehabilitated in the Premier Colony buildings at Vidyavihar. The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) would repair and improve the existing tenements to make them habitable for people to live in, he added. The Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) would later allocate it to slum dwellers occupying the 276 acres of the airport. The purpose was to clear 100 acres of airport land for the expansion of the airport, he explained in his statement in the legislative…

Several years have passed since the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) was launched to rehabilitate slum dwellers of Mumbai, and promises of free housing and proper water and sanitation facilities remain unfulfilled.  After facing eviction from their own homes, residents are stuck in rented houses with developers neither completing the project nor paying rent - owed to them - to slum dwellers. Some projects have failed to take off the ground due to reasons such as disputes between co-developers. In other cases, people are stuck in transit camps for years together.  Those who have managed to get houses, claim poor living…

The youth in Bengaluru’s many slums are caught in a vicious cycle. Of poverty, of lack of access to education and skill development resulting in their inability to get decent employment. These are key factors that lead to substance abuse issues among these youngsters as they grow up in one of the most unequal 'global' cities of India. The trajectory of young people in Bengaluru’s Rajendra Nagar slum, located in the vicinity of the high-income Koramangala neighbourhood, and the choices they make in the midst of the high-alcoholism issue in this informal settlement is not uncommon. The presence of a…

In 2017, the Gambhir Committee's National Urban Livelihood Mission Shelter Inspection Report submitted to the Supreme Court observed that homeless shelters in the country were in a dismal condition. (The committee was comprised of three members and headed by Justice (retd) Kailash Gambhir.) Many states did not comply with the guidelines of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM).  Five years later, the homeless are even worse off due to the pandemic, loss of livelihoods and unusual weather events triggered by climate change. The NULM is now aiming to provide, in a phased manner, permanent shelters to the urban homeless under…

It has been six years since the launch of the Smart City Mission in 2016. Yet its core idea, of creating a participatory model for urban governance, remains elusive. Especially for the urban poor. If people had hoped for a better managed, inclusive city with sustainable and resilient infrastructure, that hope has been cruelly belied. Plenty of projects under the Smart City mission are underway in many cities. But few have achieved the objectives they set out for themselves. Which raises the question, what does the smart city mission provide for the urban poor? Have their lives changed at all…