THIS paper discusses the social and economic exclusion of the poor in big cities and towns in terms of the problems they face in getting jobs, medical facilities, good and reliable schooling, access to potable water in their homes, sanitation and toilet facilities and affordable housing. They also face financial exclusion in their access to credit. They are often unable to practice their trade like pulling rickshaws and vending food items in residential areas or on street corners. All this points to the need for enhanced participation of low income groups in administration for making cities sustainable.

The problems of exclusion manifest themselves in a variety of ways. The poor are increasingly being shifted physically to peripheral areas of cities from where they have to undertake expensive and long commutes to get to work. They have no social safety nets as they are forced to join the informal sector after migrating from villages and have to forego their earnings when they fall sick and their work/employment entails no maternity benefits, compensation in case of accident or allowance for children’s education.

The newly arrived migrant workers’ dwelling space is often in unauthorized slums which are a hotbed of crime, and drug dealing and alcoholism. Children are made to fend for themselves and are frequently absent from school due to illness, lack of money for tuition fee or uniforms, inability to complete homework or because of sheer parental neglect, after which they drop out. They are forced to beg or do odd jobs and frequently run away from home only to be inducted into criminal gangs or forced to work as child labour. The trend in all big cities is increasingly towards a segregation of residential colonies from industrial and commercial centres and of separating slums from the residential areas. People seem to prefer this segregation even though it results in uncertainty of service providers from coming to work on time.

 

Over the last two decades, in all big cities, there has been a policy shift towards moving small and medium industry to the outskirts of the city and releasing valuable space to real estate developers for urban middle class housing. In their pattern of development and layout, Indian metro cities are increasingly mimicking global trends, where the poor are pushed to the periphery and invisibilized. To make matters worse, slums have been relocated or demolished through court orders.¹

Contrary to common characterization, urban India is growing. The 2011 Census reveals an increase in urbanization, with the number of urban residents going up from 27.8 per cent of total population in 2001 to 31.16 per cent in 2011, an increase of 3.35 percentage points over a decade. Nevertheless, even with one third of the population living in urban areas, the proportion is significantly lower than in many other developing countries.

But for the first time since independence, the decadal increase in the size of the urban population (90.99 million people over 2000-2011) was greater than that of the rural population (90.47 million). The trend in urbanization has been strongest in South India. All states except Andhra Pradesh have more than 35 per cent of its population in urban areas. The southern states also saw the fastest economic growth in the last decade, drawing migrants from other states. In some of the larger states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the proportion of urban to total population is already close to half, with Maharashtra and Gujarat not far behind.

Accompanying the spurt in urbanization is a change in the demographic profile. Sex ratios – the number of females per 1000 males – improved more rapidly in urban India to 926 from 900. In rural India it increased to 947 from 946. The lower sex ratio in urban areas is in part a consequence of enhanced access to medical facilities for sex determination. Literacy rates also grew faster in urban areas to 84.98 per cent as compared to 68.9 per cent in rural areas. The number of urban Lok Sabha (The House of the People) seats also rose from 70 to 100. Due to the many hardships faced by poor migrant labour in cities, it was widely expected that the pace of urbanization would slow down.² Nevertheless, the 2011 results show that migration is proceeding at a rapid pace, especially from villages to small towns.

 

In all the big cities of India, housing needs have grown exponentially due to the huge population increase in the past few decades. This has led to land acquisition for urban housing and for other requirements of urban life growing at a frenetic pace in all big cities. The major impetus to urbanization in modern times has been a shift in livelihood from primary to secondary and tertiary occupations.

With the price of urban land having skyrocketed, more and more outlying areas are being developed for middle class housing. Satellite towns are coming up near all the big cities with multi-storey housing complexes. Similarly, beautification and gentrification drives have been carried out in all big cities which involves removal/demolition of slums from residential areas.³

 

Indian cities are rapidly becoming ‘global cities’ with a geographic landscape similar to that of most big cities across the world. They have the same features – shopping malls, high-rise office buildings in downtown areas, banks, hotels, restaurants, clubs, golf courses and super-speciality hospitals and clinics alongside posh residential colonies. Increasingly, the small corner shops and restaurants (dhabas) are being forced out of city centres, making way for branded retail outlets of multinational companies as well as franchised international fast food outlets. Supermarkets are replacing small grocery stores and shops selling other household items. Over the years the numbers of self-employed, the lowest earning and least secure of workers, have increased and the category of regular employed has gone down. Even wage paid casual work has declined.⁴

The restructuring and dismantling of large factories/industries in cities has contributed to the growing casualization of work with many forced to take jobs in the informal sector as self-employed workers. Cities, however, do not have adequate legal space for informal economic activity, which has often to be carried out clandestinely, forcing informal sector workers to pay bribes in order to remain in business. It is, for instance, not easy for vendors to enter gated communities. Home based and self-employed workers are most vulnerable to losing their sources of livelihood because they have to work from the streets where they are harassed, or from homes which are not permanent.

 

Unfortunately, the high and middle income localities support the policy of segregation by constructing entry barriers to the general public, especially vendors. Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) increasingly demand police verification of servants and most of urban India is buying artefacts that reduce the need for casual part time labour and domestic help. People engaged in white collar jobs do not want to have an overlap of space with the poor, leave aside any interaction with them.⁵

Many RWAs have filed public interest litigations (PILs) demanding the eviction and relocation of the poor as they are seen as polluting the immediate urban neighbourhood. There is, as a result, an increase in the segmentation of the city. Increasingly, the RWAs have been involved in infrastructure projects, planning and participatory budgeting and maintenance of neighbourhood security. All this has resulted in sanitization of the cities and enhanced policing of public spaces within their jurisdiction. Some of these societies have received unprecedented importance, having been empowered by the master plan to determine the land use of their colonies.

Migration is nevertheless rising in small towns because of lack of work in the villages. People are relocating to urban areas in search of better wages and job opportunities. One of the prime reasons is higher urban wages. Many migrants are, however, temporary and the migration may be circular in nature with people going back to their villages after some time. By working in cities and towns, workers are able to send money to the villages, thus enhancing the incomes of families back home. The money earned in towns helps in important expenditures like building a house, buying farm animals or in the marriage of a sibling or daughter.

 

Big cities have historically attracted migrants from near and far away villages and some of these migrants never return home, acquiring permanent homes in the city’s ghettos and slums. According to the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) data, 55 per cent of slum dwellers have been living in them for over 15 years and another 12 per cent between 10 and 15 years, establishing the fact that slums are an integral part of the phenomenon of urbanization and contribute significantly to the economy of cities. As a source of affordable labour supply for production in both the formal and informal sectors, slums are a reflection of the exclusionary socio-economic policies and planning of the city.

About 49,000 slums were estimated to be in existence in urban India in 2008-09 with 24 per cent of them located along nallahs and drains, and 12 per cent along railway lines. About 57 per cent of slums are on public land owned by local bodies, state governments, and so on. In 64 per cent of the notified slums,⁶ a majority of the dwellings were pucca, the corresponding percentage for non-notified ones being 50 per cent.

The urban poor often live in unimaginable poverty and squalor, usually facing complete neglect from the city authorities. Many do not even possess a ration card and have to buy their food from the open market. They are victims of various types of petty corruption and police harassment within the city. The urban poor constitute a large proportion of the population in many big cities. In Mumbai, 62 per cent of the population lives in slums, in Delhi 20 per cent, Kolkata 33 per cent, Bangalore 20 per cent and Chennai 18 per cent.

While around 75 per cent of slum households have not benefitted from any of the government programmes designed to alleviate poverty, 15.7 per cent of households received land-related and other miscellaneous benefits.⁷ Slum population differs from city to city, the maximum numbers being located in Mumbai. Many seek domestic jobs, work in miserable conditions in small enterprises or are self-employed vendors. A vast majority join the informal sector economy and form the core of the city’s service sector which serves the urban middle class households throughout the year. They are mostly in domestic service – watchmen, drivers, handymen, petty traders, cleaners, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, itinerant tradesmen, street food sellers that constitute the transient/floating service population living in slums and ghettos. Many also manufacture small items, for instance, the Dharavi slum locality of Mumbai has a flourishing leather goods business sustained by workers residing within the slum.

 

In general, permanent slums have better facilities than the temporary ones. Most slums have electricity and water supply, though not always inside their small living spaces. During monsoons, however, around half the slums are affected by stagnant water, with a third experiencing water-logging both inside the slum as well on the approach road. There is no health care infrastructure for urban areas, and there is an urgent need to reform the delivery mechanisms for education to ensure its relevance for the urban poor and disadvantaged children. Basically, the authorities must ensure that enrolment does not fall and work towards gender and income parity.

 

Fortunately, sanitary conditions in the slums in terms of latrine facility have considerably improved since 2002. Latrines with septic tanks or similar facility were available in 68 per cent notified and 47 per cent non-notified slums. At the other extreme, 10 per cent of notified and 20 per cent non-notified slums did not have any toilets at all. About 10 per cent of the notified and 23 per cent non-notified slums did not have any drainage facility. Underground drainage systems or drainage systems constructed of pucca materials exist in about 39 per cent notified slums and 24 per cent non-notified slums. Underground sewerage exists in about 33 per cent notified slums and 19 per cent non-notified slums. Government agencies collected garbage from 75 per cent notified slums and 55 per cent non-notified slums. Among such slums, garbage was collected at least once a week in 93 per cent notified and 92 per cent non-notified slums. About 10 per cent notified and 23 per cent non-notified slums did not have any regular mechanism for garbage disposal.⁸

In the future, big cities and towns will face huge problems as pressure on the infrastructural facilities will only mount. The poor will be more affected as they may not be able to afford the user charges for basic amenities and services. Most cities are opting to introduce user charges and favour increased privatization for housing and basic services, a tendency already promoted under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.⁹ Basic amenities that would involve user charges include housing, water supply, toilets, power, roads and garbage collection. It must be realized that about 75 million households in India (35 per cent of all urban households) cannot afford housing at market prices. About 17 million households live in slums. India has not been able to systematically provide affordable housing, with the government building fewer than 200,000 units a year, while the minimum that India needs is two million housing units annually.

 

The cities and towns of India are emulating the global model, with business districts that have banks, insurance companies, liaison offices and offices that arrange for services, including hospitality and medical services, sewage and garbage disposal. These services are slowly being privatized. The new satellite towns too will have their own power generation and water which will be privately supplied to residents. Only the adjoining poorer areas will be forced to depend on municipal corporations for such services.

The modern Indian cities are aspiring to become global business centres with comparable facilities for business as in London, New York and Hong Kong. Global cities will be the hub of financial and other commercial services and everything that will facilitate this process is likely to be adopted. They are becoming white collar enclaves in which IT and knowledge based services will flourish. But they will also need cleaners, plumbers, electricians, guards, load carriers, gardeners, construction workers and domestic help. These service providers will have to come from among the urban poor and unless they are well integrated into the city system, it will contribute to social tension despite the high level of business activity and income generation. It is in the four big cities that India’s 69 known dollar billionaires and 120,000 dollar millionaires live. They will need services from the poor which will be increasingly difficult to access.

 

The financial exclusion of the poor in urban areas is also a serious problem. Self-help groups that flourish in the villages have somehow not taken off in cities and towns. The poor, therefore, have to depend on non-institutional sources and loan sharks. The reach of commercial banks, even in the urban sector, remains low at 3.2 per cent. This is because the low income, low asset holding segment of the urban poor has largely been bypassed by the overall expansion in financial intermediation. Microfinance intermediaries too choose not to work among urban population given the peculiar dynamics of community formation in urban centres and towns, particularly in the poorest settlements that predominantly house immigrant labour. The lack of a permanent address of loan takers and group risk takers also act as an impediment to access microcredit.¹⁰

Ever since the initiation of liberalization policies in 1991, Indians who possess wealth, property and skills have managed to earn huge incomes while avoiding taxes. This has resulted in a growing parallel black economy and the city’s rich are getting richer and demanding more goods and services. Unfortunately, direct tax revenue collections have not grown at a commensurate rate and are inadequate to provide facilities for the slums and the poor.

 

In many cities, foreign direct investment has flowed into special economic zones (SEZs) for industrial collaboration. The low income groups and the poor can find work in these special zones and industrial parks that have been set up to encourage foreign and domestic investment. Lack of skills, however, acts as a barrier to the poor from getting employment except in the lowest type of menial jobs. Often, the creation of such special economic zones has also meant encroaching on spaces meant for the poor.

The big cities are increasingly providing services for multinational firms and have huge office spaces that are rented to them for establishing their production and sales delivery chains in India. They hire educated, English speaking youth in these offices and become outsourcing centres for the parent organization located in more developed countries. High salaries are paid to the staff while in the same offices the menial workers are paid a paltry sum. Even as the young executives are buying flats in the newly established satellite towns, the poor are being pushed further away in slums.

The construction of these high rise, glass fronted buildings is going on everywhere in big cities. These are mostly energy inefficient structures and continuously need power to lift water and people to top floors. These modern buildings are being constructed by migrant workers who live in small tents pitched around the sites which serve as their temporary homes with children running around. They have no proper kitchen or toilet facilities, education and health care for their families. They work from morning till night but are given no basic amenities.

The Indian government is doing very little to address the problem of exclusion of the urban poor. The flagship programme for urban renewal, i.e., Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), aims to attend to such social problems; however, according to some studies, no noticeable change is visible. This is also observed from the prevailing deficit in low cost housing and provision of basic services in slums. Thus, serious efforts have to be made to reduce spatial inequality and to safeguard the interests of the urban poor so that they can live a decent life.

It is possible to sustain urbanization without creating social tension only by promoting security of livelihood for the poor. If the poor have reasonable jobs, there can be peaceful coexistence between the poor, the middle and high income groups. There needs to be a more participatory development of cities which is possible only if the low income groups have a voice and stake in the development of cities. There will have to be better quality basic education in the slums that will enable at least functional literacy. Similarly, training in marketable skills to unemployed youth and women will help them to get jobs.

 

Recycling waste can generate employment, but humanizing these jobs and making them safe and free from health hazards is critical. The training in recovering of green construction materials from municipal and industrial waste for construction of buildings will also generate jobs. Primary health care in slums, which is both preventive and curative, will be crucial in ensuring that the poor do not spend their entire earnings on treatment of diseases. There will have to be health insurance for the poor and also one which covers accidents and maternity.

For energy conservation, tall buildings with glass fronts should be discouraged as they consume enormous amounts of energy in lifting people and water to heights. Also, cooling and heating such buildings is expensive. Conserving energy and water will be most important for sustainability of cities in the future.

Women require crèche facilities and accessible medical care which will enable them to participate in urban development and renewal. Many young women feel insecure working in cities and need affordable accommodation in hostels. More women’s hostels must be built, specially in SEZs, in order to enable young women to work in them.

 

More mass rapid transport and walkways will make our cities environmentally sustainable and pollution free. Simultaneously, unless private vehicular traffic is reduced, clogging of streets and traffic jams will make travelling inside cities a nightmare. The government will have to undertake massive investment in upgrading the city’s infrastructure to cope with the increase in urbanization in the future.

An appropriate partnership for local governance involving citizen groups and local authorities, to provide effective means of conflict resolution has to be evolved. The 74th amendment to the Constitution has opened up opportunities for the devolution of governance to the lowest political strata of society which must be fully utilized. Simultaneously, the bureaucracy should be sensitized to simplify and streamline governmental procedures so as to minimize the mandatory citizen-bureaucrat interface. Finally, care must be taken that the new rules and regulations based on principles of devolution and decentralization facilitate greater involvement of urban local bodies.

 

Footnotes:

1. Veronique Dupont, ‘Slum Demolition in Delhi since 1990s: An Appraisal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 12 July 2008.

2. A. Kundu, ‘Urbanisation in Asia: A Macro Overview’, Economic and Political Weekly, 28 November 2009. Also, A. Kundu, ‘Politics and Economics of Urban Growth’, Economic and Political Weekly, 14 May 2011.

3. Swapna Banerjee-Guha, ‘Contradictions of "Development" in Contemporary India’, 7 February 2011, http://www.opendemo cracy.net/

4. S.R. Hashim, ‘Economic Development and Urban Poverty in India.’ India Urban Poverty Report. Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2009.

5. Debolina Kundu, ‘Elite Capture and Marginalization of the Poor in Participatory Urban Governance: A Case of RWAs in Metro Cities.’ India Urban Poverty Report, 2009. Also, Debolina Kundu, ‘Redefining the Inclusive Urban Agenda in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 29 January 2011.

6. National Sample Survey Organization, Some Characteristics of Urban Slums 2008-09, NSSO, 2009.

7. O.P. Mathur, National Urban Poverty Reduction Strategy 2010-2020 – Slum Free Cities: A New Deal for the Urban Poor. National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Delhi, 2009.

8. Op cit., fn. 6.

9. M. Ramachandran, ‘JNNURM: A Balance Sheet’, Economic Times, 16 January 2011.

10. Tara S. Nair, ‘Urban Microfinance in the Context of Urban Poverty.’ India Urban Poverty Report, op cit., 2009.