The bulk of India’s urban poor is made of migrant labourers who end up setting up home in slum areas, without any legal claim on the land they live on.
The bulk of India’s urban poor is made of migrant labourers who end up setting up home in slum areas, without any legal claim on the land they live on, say experts at a workshop for ‘shelter security and social protection for the urban poor and the migrants in Asia’, organised by Cept University in collaboration with Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) at Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute on Thursday.
The lack of land tenure is not only a disincentive for the slum-dwellers from building better homes and improve sanitation conditions, but it also exposes them to threats of eviction. This is due to the nexus between the state and the real estate industry, who have vested interests in the land occupied by these slumdwellers.
According to the former Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing for the United Nations Human Rights Council, Miloon Kothari, in March to December last year, 3,500 families were evicted from slums in Mumbai, adding to more than 3.6 million people evicted from slums across Asia since 2003. In Delhi, 70% of people evicted were not resettled, only adding to the problem of homelessness.
One notable account of eviction was the case of the Mandala slums in Mumbai in 2005, which was presented by Amita Bhide of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The slums were razed as part of the intense demolition drive by the state government. The struggle for tenure by the Mandala residents, which ended up in bloodshed, emphasises the importance of tenure in providing poor the right to be in a city, which includes access to education, health, food, water and shelter.
The misconception of slumdwellers as unlawful tenants was squashed by Bijal Bhatt of the Mahila Housing Trust, whose experience with providing assistance with water and sanitation to the urban poor led to a struggle for tenure.
“Seventy five per cent of slums in Ahmedabad sit on private land. The slumdwellers pay a fee to the private landowners, but when the state comes to claim the land, they get no say and have to evacuate the land immediately,” she said, explaining that these lands belong to private owners with provision that the state can reclaim the land if required.
“We found that even when slumdwellers were willing to invest for sanitation and water, some private land owners did not allow these constructions to take place,” Bhatt noted.
The issue of shelter is also tied to policies such as the Special Economic Zones and Foreign Direct Investment Policies. “Mega projects attract many construction workers who don’t get a place to live. This is something the policy-makers fail to consider,” said Rao. This, however, may be alleviated with the green building revolution, which requires the living conditions of construction workers be accounted for.
“In a rare case, a green building contractor in Bangalore paid out of his own pocket for his workers to live in a secure colony equipped with medical and childcare services. This is something positive to look forward to,” he said.
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