An estimated 26 per cent of urban population (810 lakhs in 2004-05) still subsists on incomes that are below the poverty line. Eighty percent of their meagre earnings go towards food and energy, leaving very little for meeting the costs of living in an increasingly monetized society. The majority of them live in slums and squatter settlements, in inhuman conditions that deny them dignity, shelter, security, and the right to basic civic amenities or social services, in an environment in which crime, ill-health and disease frequently raise demands that draw them deeper into vulnerability and poverty. That about a quarter of the country’s urban population lives in notified and non-notified slums – higher in the metros, is an indication of the iniquitous and exclusionary urban planning system, urban land management practices and land legislation that have not been able to adapt themselves to the pace or profile of indigenous urban growth; or to create space within the formal system of planned living and working spaces to accommodate the informal working classes. As urbanization grows, and the projected share of urban households rises in the next two decades from the current 28% to 50% of the country’s population, we may expect that slums will grow, seriously crippling the productive capacities of a growing number of people by the denial of basic services, shelter and security, increasing inequity and retarding the productive potential of urban areas.
(i) Thus, both for considerations of social and economic growth - and the Constitutional mandate - it is necessary to break away from past trends and practices and to take decisive action for inclusive urban development that acknowledges the presence of the poor in cities, recognizes their contribution as essential to the city’s functioning, and redresses the fundamental reasons for inequity that ties them down to poverty.
(ii)The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM) with its separate sub-mission on the urban poor comprising of the Basic Services for Urban Poor(BSUP) and the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) has been successful in achieving the overarching aim of focusing State attention on the problems of inequity in urban areas, and drawing budgetary resources to the welfare of the urban poor. There is an increasing assumption of responsibility towards the slum dwellers, and their entitlement to conditions conducive to a dignified quality of life. Simultaneously, there is an acceptance at policy level, both in the State and the municipality, that the emergence of new slums can be prevented only by increasing the availability of affordable housing, which in turn requires that the market distorting shortages of land and housing be corrected.
(iii) The foundation laid by the above initiatives now needs to be built upon, by unlocking the potential of the most important asset in the context of slums in cities i.e. land, through assigning legal property rights to the urban poor. It is in this regard that the scheme introduces a bold new vision and a new direction to policy, viz., a Slum free India, in which those who live in slums are enabled to aspire for formal acceptance in urban areas by the assignment of property rights to them over their dwelling space. As demonstrated in many countries across the globe moving the urban poor from the informal to the formal economy is also an investment in deepening democracy and strengthening the legal order; thereby widening society‘s interest in peace and stability.