India's Slum Population to Cross 100 million Mark by 2017

The Sen Committee report redefined slums as small clusters of 20-25 households living in a contiguous area and it also brought out the problem faced by slum such as inaccessibility to basic civic amenities like water, sanitation and sewerage.

H R Suri, former head of Institute of Town Planners India said, "We are creating a bigger problem by failing to manage both bigger and smaller cities. Places like Khurja and Bulandshahr close to Delhi have become slums due to faulty planning and poor programme implementation. We can't allow unchecked and unplanned urban growth. Governments must understand this and take steps keeping aside their political reasons," reported TOI.

The slums population in metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Delhi accounts for 41.3 percent, 29.6 percent, 28 percent, 15 percent respectively, as per the census.

The UPA government introduced Rajiv Awas Yojna mainly to reduce the slum population in the country. Thus, this scheme will provide affordable housing to the poor and make urban areas a slum free zone.

With the growing urbanization, the slums are only likely to grow exponentially in the next two decades from the present 28 percent to 50 percent of India's population.

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