Urban poor ghettoised: NGO

To understand land use pattern in the city, NGO Yuva conducted a study titled ‘Ground Truthing’ in the P/North ward Malad (West), with a population of 9.58 lakh, to assess the results of the development plan (DP). Conducted in October, the study provides an understanding of land use reservation and implementation in the city in the past two decades.

With more than 60% of the city’s population living in slums, 10 million of them live under the threat of constant displacement. In Mumbai, more than 55% of the population lives on less than 6% land.

Rehabilitation has resulted in ghettoisation of the urban poor as most of it was done in one ward where the Human Development Index is the lowest. “On one hand, the BMC is mapping informal settlements in the survey and, on the other, the state is demolishing them,” said Aravind Unni, planner and architect, Yuva.

Only 5-7% of the actual DP has been implemented in the city’s 24 wards in over 20 years. In P/North ward, the execution of the public health scheme is only about 58.27%, out of which 90% is concentrated in Malvani.

On the other hand, 350 homes were demolished in Kharodi, Malvani, and an estimated 1,850 people were rendered homeless last week. “The state promised shelters for the homeless as per SC directives and has failed to deliver,” said Unni.

The ward’s total area is 11,680 acres and the total housing reservation is only 492 acres. Informal settlements occupy only 10% of the area and house about 70% of its total population.

In the area of municipal housing, one-third of the development has been carried out by private developers in selected sections with no benefits to low-income groups. Coastal villages have not been addressed in the DP map, leaving them without any resource allocation. “This serves to promote the proliferation of private builders,” the report states.

With the BMC’s health budget decreasing this year by 8.2%, public health services in the city only managed to reach 30% of the urban poor. The ward needs 48 health posts, but has only seven. The ward also requires at least four hospitals, but has only one.

In the education sector, of the 116 school plots, 63 are developed, 27 not developed and 26 encroached; 46% reserved school plots remain abandoned or encroached. At present, the ward has 24 primary schools, while 240 are needed.

The study revealed that 57% of reserved plots for recreation ground (RG) in the ward are allotted to the upper middle class, 75% are in middle-class areas and 37% have not been developed. This nature of planning, the report states, perpetuates a cycle of deprivation, ghettoisation and poverty.