SOCIAL HOUSING, LOST IN URBAN RENEWALUrban centres the world over act as beacons of hope by virtue of the economic activity they attract. That urbanization is an indicator of the economic and financial health of a country is a self-evident truth. From ancient Rome and Athens to the mega-cities of today, urbanization was and remains a key driver of civilization. The dynamics of a bustling mega-city ensure that manifold opportunities arise in the field of services to keep the urban way of life going.
According to the census office, demographic trends indicate that by 2026, more than half the population of states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab would be living in urban areas. This is very much in consonance with the global tendency of people moving from villages to towns and cities. Urbanization reflects the fact that India is gradually climbing up the development ladder; it is a consequence of an expanding economy. Not just the major metros, even smaller cities will and are attracting the rural population. To understand the significance of this urban shift demographically: in 1991, India had 23 cities with a population of one million or more; however, now there are 35 cities with a million-plus people. Just as the past, the future is urban. Thus, if man is a social animal (which he undoubtedly is), then urbanization is the ultimate expression of his social needs.
In a sense like a living organism the city grows and it needs space for its occupants, their transport needs, their habitation, water supply and sanitary needs. Geographical conditions determine whether this growth is horizontal or vertical; urban renewal therefore is not just a challenging necessity, but a sacred duty of the Government at the Central, State and Municipal level. The very words urban renewal bring to mind a vision of path-breaking civil engineering works in the form of clover-leaf flyovers, extensive bridges, elevated railways, wide spacious multi-lane concretized roadways, efficient international airports, and something more.
SOCIAL HOUSING – FAILURES, A MATTER OF CONCERN
What is this something more? I am speaking here about social housing. As we pride on our inexorable march towards progress and a sustained 8% growth rate to attain a new economic status in the comity of nations; would it not be appalling to note that as a functioning democracy we are not able to provide affordable housing to the millions of our urban poor? According to a recent NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) survey, Maharashtra has highest number of urban slums. While most urban slums have access to electricity and tarred roads, they do not possess even the basic sanitary facilities. In Mumbai, 40 per cent of the population (about 6 million persons) lives in slums and another 5-10 per cent are pavement dwellers. Yet, according to one recent estimate, slum dwellers occupy only 8 per cent of the city’s land, which totals about 43,000 hectares. If we want our cities to be world class, urban renewal should, while going about the business of infrastructure plan in advance about habitations for the displaced. It is easy to get carried away in a fit of misplaced elitist elegance and rage over the slums as some eyesore and wish them away. In fact, in 2004, 11 prominent citizens moved the Mumbai High Court to bar slum dwellers from voting. In 2005, the city's Municipal Corporation itself asked the Chief Electoral Officer to drop residents of the demolished slums from the voters' lists - a move that smacks of bitter irony in the face of the Government’s efforts to extend citizen’s privileges to NRIs :- And here you are disenfranchising your own citizens is this ‘garib hatao’ or ‘garibi hatao’?
Incidentally, the much vaunted slum resettlement scheme launched in 1995 has failed to achieve its objectives largely due to politics of money. Housing should be part of integrated development and it was with this aim that the Housing Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO) was established in 1970. Despite having lent a cumulative amount of Rs 10,000 crores for urban housing, HUDCO has not been successful in fulfilling its objectives. This has been attributed to the fact that its quasi-financial structure with minimal regulatory or governance mechanism renders it vulnerable to corruption, lack of transparency – big negatives which translate into inadequate results.
During the previous Central regime, it was declared that four lakh houses would be built every year by public sector institutions for the urban poor. However, spread over 5161 towns and cities, and at the rate of Rs 50,000 per house, the number of houses built would average out to 15.5 per urban centre! So the ministry revised the target to 20 lakh houses per year. Real estate developers, on the other hand, estimate that for a family to acquire a one-room kitchen tenement, situated in the distant suburbs of metro cities, would cost a minimum of Rs 2 lakhs. The monthly instalment for a 15-year loan would be Rs. 1860, or roughly 75% of the average monthly income of a slum dweller!
The UN-Habitat report – ‘State of the World’s Cities 2006/7’ shows that urban poor suffer from an urban penalty – “slum dwellers in developing countries are as badly off if not worse off than their rural relatives”. This exposes how the political establishment always tries to represent poverty as an essentially rural issue in order to hide its spread and preponderance. The report records the “failure of governments to provide affordable housing in cities which has forced the bulk of the urban population into inner city slums, peripheral shantytowns and, in many cases, the sidewalks and traffic roundabouts and condemned them to a life of insecure employment, state persecution and extreme poverty”.
TOWARDS AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR THE URBAN POOR
It is about supply and demand, the slums that you see are a direct consequence of failing to anticipate the demographic shift from rural to urban areas due to the demand of manpower placed by the myriad opportunities that the cities offer. The occupants of these slums are a vital part of the urban workforce ranging from the respectable low end of white-collar organizations to the menial low end of industrial and commercial concerns. They also engage in temporary, physically dangerous and socially degrading forms of work. The output of these hardworking people keeps the city ticking; your kamwalli bai, the pavwallah who delivers pav and eggs to you doorstep, drainage workers who are hired on contract, hawkers, plumbers, electricians, painters, and many more are often denizens of these slums. These less than ordinary “toilers” are very much active contributors to the Indian economy, and they do so without placing any demand on the Government for jobs or any employment scheme. Yet by striking out at them in the form of ill-conceived demolitions and seeking to disenfranchise them, we in the long run harm ourselves. Our lifestyles used to their convenient presence in the form of various services that they offer will become costlier. The solution therefore is to encourage them to invest in “affordable housing”. The political will to do this, unfortunately till date has not manifested itself in a way one would like.
According to Ramesh Ramanathan, HUDCO needs reformation, and the steps that are necessary to such a transition include:-
- “Strong local governments that can manage urban planning, have fiscal strength and enforcement credibility.
- Bottom-up participation of the affected communities, in determining housing solutions.
- Integrated delivery of services, not just housing. Examples show that for every rupee invested in infrastructure, the poor generate seven rupees of their own capital.
- A stock of publicly-created, innovatively-managed rental housing as part of low-income housing policy.”
- “A thorough revamping of land title systems, to move to a guaranteed system.
- The creation of zoning and land-use planning that specifically encourages low-income housing, and mixed income neighbourhoods”
During the building of residential complexes, there is seldom any thought given to building servant quarters, perhaps the problems related to occupancy and title that may arise may be acting as a deterrent in taking such a progressive step. So it is, that outside those plush residential complexes and housing colonies you have a collection of shanties, the beginnings of slum settlements which can proliferate horizontally. Thus, our indifference/animus to “those” people even in the face of our mutual interdependence helps in initiation and proliferation of slums.
Hafeez Contractor feels that the Urban Land Ceiling Act, even after 30 years of existence, has failed to achieve its objectives and so must be withdrawn. Instead of ensuring that the poorest of poor in our society get access to affordable housing – a basic premise of the act; over the years, it has managed to do the exact opposite. “The Act has frozen huge urban areas thereby reducing the supply of land for residential development; created a vast black market in real estate; inflated realty prices and aggravated housing shortages. There is already a growing consensus amongst experts that that the social and economic shortfalls of the Urban Land Ceiling Act completely overshadow whatever benefits the regulation was intended to provide.”
According to Vinit Mukhija, slum redevelopment in Mumbai can be brought about by “enabling housing provision through market mechanisms” which may require “four levels of seeming policy contradictions”: -
- “Both decentralisation and centralisation
- Both privatisation and public investment
- Both deregulation and new regulations, and
- Both demand-driven and supply-driven development."
CONCLUSION
Human capital should be treated with the respect it deserves. It cannot be exploited as a vote-bank to encourage slums and then conveniently dumped for the purposes of Shanghaisation of the city. “Those” people from the slums are the ones whom you encounter in the form of your kamwalli bai, the pavwallah who delivers pav and eggs to you doorstep, drainage workers who are hired on contract, hawkers, plumbers, electricians, painters; in short, hardworking people whose toils keeps the city ticking. These people are self-employed and not a drain on the economy but positive contributors to the economic growth of our country. They deserve decent habitations and clearly, Governments both at the Central as well as the State level have failed in their duty to help them achieve this objective. This is all the more depressing considering the fact that urban poor spend close to Rs 1 lakh of their own money on housing!
Alas, recently, in fact, last month the slum rehabilitation scheme, which has led to rampant construction across the city, has come under attack from the Mumbai high court. “Holding that the scheme run by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) had become a “profitable business venture for builders” with the active backing of politicians, the court on Friday, August 11, 2006 asked the state government to take suitable steps to ensure that it was not misused at the cost of slum dwellers. Questioning the growing interest shown by politicians and elected representatives in the scheme, the judges suggested lower incentives for builders and a ban on sale of free flats allotted to slum dwellers”.
As a nation, we cannot hope to be an economic superpower by dispossessing and depriving people of not just their homes but livelihoods. Make them partners in their quest for a decent habitation. Destroy poverty and not the poor! Incidentally, a beautiful Mumbai is immensely desirable, but aping Shanghai and Singapore model for doing so is not the way! Our way should be democratic; copying authoritarian and totalitarian models is plainly speaking obnoxious.
REFERENCES
- Slum rehab scheme a racket says HC, TOI, Aug 12, 2006
- Vinit Mukhija, Housing Studies, Volume 16, Number 6 / November 1, 2001
- Urban Governmentality, Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 13, No. 2, 23-43 (2001)
- The Hindu, June 03, 2004
- Maharashtra has highest number of urban slums: NSSO survey, The Asian Age, March 9, 2004
- Ramesh Ramanathan, Financial Express, 24 Feb 2005
- P Sainath, 10 Feb 2005, The Hindu
- Dunu Roy, Combat Law, Volume 3, Issue 3, September-October 2004
