Panel projects India's urban slum population at 93.06 m in 2011

The committee, chaired by Dr Pranob Sen, Principal Adviser, Planning Commission and former Secretary of the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, was set up by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) to study the slum definition and to estimate urban slum population for the whole country on the basis of available data.

The committee had submitted its final report to the Ministry on August 30 and Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja released it here yesterday.

The committee had made adjustments and corrections to create a reliable statistical model based on data for 1743 cities and towns which had been enumerated in the Census 2001. It then applied this model to estimate the slum population in all 5161 urban areas of the country, including the 3799 statutory towns.

Using this model, the committee estimated the slum population in the country in 2001 at 75.26 milion and the projected figure for 2011 at 93.06 million. The Census 2001 had shown the slum population in the country in that year as 52.4 million after surveying 1743 towns with population 20,000 and above reporting slums.

For the Slum Census 2011, the committee has recommended that, for policy formulation purposes, it is absolutely essential to count the slum population even in towns with less than 20,000 population.

For the purpose of planning for the Rajiv Awas Yojana, which aims at a slum-free India, it would be necessary to count the population in all statutory towns in the country, it said.

The committee has suggested a different definition for a slum than the one currently adopted by the Census of India and the States. It has recommended a normative definition based on appropriate indicators and checklists for the purpose of identification of slum areas and enumeration of population in them.

It recommends contiguous area with 20-25 households having slum like characteristics as a slum area. Based on the pilot studies carried out by the Registrar General of India (RGI), the following characteristics have been identified as slum characteristics:

i) Predominant roof material: any material other than concrete (RBC/ RCC)

ii) Availability of drinking water source: not within premises of the census house

iii) Availability of latrine: not within premises of the census house

iv) Drainage facility: no drainage or open drainage

The Committee has recommended that once the layout maps are released before the general census in 2011, the RGI should share them with the Ministry of HUPA with marking of the contiguous areas having slum- like characteristics for use in planning and as an aid to slum surveys.

The Ministry would work closely with the RGI to carry out the ground verification of slum clusters within the identified enumeration blocks to finalize the Master Frame of slums in the country, an official press release added.

NNN