Written by: Akshika Jangid
It isn’t uncommon for an average Indian to pass across tin-roofed houses made of scraps of roof pieces, Patras and plastic carpets. It is also not uncommon for us to forget them immediately. After all, the sight isn’t as good.
The people who live there are not well off and seem to be struggling. Puddles of wet mud and gutter water seem to lie right in front of their gates and one can only think- how do they even live there!
Well, welcome to the grim world of Indian Slums.
But here’s the truth: every sixth Indian living in urban areas stays in a slum. In Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, more than 55% of the population resides in slum conditions. Their story is not just about poverty but about how our cities are planned, governed, and most importantly, how sustainable development—or the lack of it—shapes lives.
To put into perspective : This article dwells into what is a slum and why do slums develop/what are the major issues around it and why do we feel that sustainable development is the key to develop slums areas.
What is a Slum?
According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), “ A slum is a complacent settlement of at least 20 households with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly temporary, crowded together usually with inadequate sanitary and drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions.” International definitions of slums vary, but the United Nations (UN-Habitat, 2003) explains them as “low-income settlements with poor human living conditions.”
To sum it up in other words, can we say slums are places where basic dignity becomes a struggle?
Why Do Slums Develop?
Although living in a slum is not particularly pleasant, it is not an option for the residents as increased population, unstable income and a hostile legal and regulatory environment all contribute to the development of slum, excluding the urban poor from safer, more valuable areas of cities. India’s slums are not products of laziness or choice. They are the direct consequences of systemic gaps.
Cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru act as magnets for migrants seeking jobs. These cities do have more industries and services that attract millions, but at the same time limited affordable housing options remains a biggest challenge. However, rapid urbanization is not the only cause for the emergence of slums but poor urban city planning, insecure land tenure and a lack of will by the politicians where governments have historically chosen short-term solutions over long-term vision.
In other words, slums are a byproduct of India’s urbanization story—a reflection of what happens when growth is unbalanced.
Living Conditions Inside Slums
When we visit India’s largest slum, Dharavi, we’ll find vibrant communities living together, small-scale industries, and resilient people having bigger dreams. But on the other hand, you would also see daily hardships such as;
- Scarcity of Basic Necessities
Inadequacy of access to better water and sanitation services is occasionally complemented by other issues such as the lack of garbage collection systems, electricity, paved or surfaced sidewalks, street lighting, and rainwater drainage.
- Substandard Housing or Illegal and Inadequate Building Structures
Slum regions have been linked to a significant number of subpar housing structures, frequently constructed with temporary materials that are unsuited for dwelling. Earthen flooring, mud-and-wattle walls, or straw roofs are a few examples of elements that make a structure unsatisfactory.
- Unhealthy Living Conditions and Hazardous Locations
A majority of the slum settlements are located near open sewers, a lack of paths, unchecked garbage disposal, contaminated settings, etc.
- Insecure Tenure, Irregular or Informal Settlements
Lack of security of tenancy is one of the main characteristics of slums, according to some, and the absence of a formal document granting the owner of the property the right to occupy the building or land is regarded as prima facie proof of illegality and slum occupation.
- Poverty and Social Exclusion
Slums are places of social exclusion that are frequently thought to have high rates of crime and other socially disruptive activities. According to certain definitions, these regions are linked to vulnerable population groups including recent immigrants, internally displaced people, or racial or ethnic minorities.
Impact of Slums on the environment
The above-mentioned issues aggravate environmental issues due to insufficient water and sanitary amenities, waste burning, direct exposure to dust. It becomes clear: slums are not just about poverty—they are about environmental injustice too.
The major environmental implications due to slum development are as follows:
- Water pollution
According to a significant study, most of the families in city slums have poor water quality. Total dissolved solids (TDS) and nitrate levels are over permissible limits due to poor water quality, which is causing human water-borne diseases. The worrisome rise in water contamination is also being caused by disease-causing germs, toxic substances like arsenic and lead, and toxic compounds. As a result, individuals are suffering from deadly waterborne illnesses like cholera, jaundice, typhoid, and diarrhea. (Ramnath Subbaraman, n.d.) - Air Pollution
The air in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai is very polluted, with dangerously high levels of nitrous oxide and particulate matter. Both of these pose a risk to human health and may contribute to conditions like asthma. Construction dust, an ever-rising car population, and industry are the main contributors to this pollution. (Ravindran & Kakade, 2015). The majority of slums are located next to or alongside roads which exposes them to dust directly and also inadequate ventilation increases the risk of harmful respiratory diseases constant nagging coughs, overflowing sewers, pungent air and smoke entering their houses are the harsh realities which is not given enough attention by the government.
In today’s times, Dharavi which is Asia’s largest slum faces a wide range of environmental problems, congestion, inadequate access to shelter and basic services, etc to which no proper measure has been taken. Pottery kilns, which is a widespread business in the area, sends heavy black smoke into the air every day and makes the air polluted. Even the hospitals nearby complain about the smoke being released out of the kiln. These problems arise because the people do not own these properties and since this property is a poor piece of land, the government kicks them out for another new project instead of taking a sustainable measure to solve this issue.
- Waste production
India generates an enormous amount of wastes each day—3.5 million metric tonnes. Unfortunately, 70-80% of this municipal solid waste lands up in open spaces that are a threat to human health, contaminates the water and blocks the existing drains.
Why Sustainable Development?
Urban expansion has several main objectives, one of which is sustainable development. It is the practice of development that incorporates decision-making around the requirements of the ecosystem, the economy, and the people. Furthermore, defined sustainable development is preserving the standard of living in slums, and achieving this through promoting the health of the planet’s ecosystems and resources is the key to improving and promoting the environment in and around slum development areas.
Now, here comes the question: how do we fix this? Should slums be demolished? Should people be moved elsewhere? Or is there another way?
Sustainable development offers that other way. It treats slum development not as a temporary fix but as a long-term plan. So why is it critical?
- Because Slums Are Growing: They are not disappearing; they expand as cities expand.
- Because the Issues Are Interconnected: Poor housing is linked to poor health, poor sanitation to water pollution, insecure tenure to instability. A piecemeal approach has failed.
- Because It’s About Human Dignity: The goal is not just giving a “roof” but ensuring access to water, clean air, sanitation, education, and livelihoods.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—particularly the goal of making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable—recognize that uplifting slums is integral to building future-ready cities.
Why do our policies fail?
There are various reasons for low levels of infrastructure and services such as First, operating on a low tax base where the government in these cities are not able to finance even 50% of the municipal costs and second, poverty debt traps. Since, the slum population is majorly informal and tax non-compliant, local governments pay very less heed on the incentive to spend money on increasing their service levels of these slum areas. This is very well evident in the above mentioned problems.
Despite the program focusing on making India open defecation free by building more toilets near the households in the slum areas, yet it fails to fulfill its objectives due to a skewed land ownership system, membership fees that require families to pay per use or purchase a monthly pass and accessibility to these toilets is often a challenge for the families living in the slums. Inadequate sanitation is highly costly and the policies that attempt to clean up the slum areas have made it difficult for families to access a more clean infrastructure due to the increasing pricing of the facilities.
In addition to this, there are also inequalities that exist in the facilities of waste disposal, Collection and disposal. Lack of financial resources, institutional weakness, poor choice of technology and public dislike of SWM has rendered the service far from satisfactory (Supreme Court of India Report, 1999, p. 7).
Unfortunately, Maharashtra had no definition of a slum. However, It relies on two provisions stated in the Maharashtra slum area act, 1971. The inherent flaws in the Slum Act and the Development Control Regulations are the main reason for the proliferation of Environmental problems in the urban slums. Thus, the laws governing the urban local authorities do not contain adequate provisions to deal effectively with this situation, and local authorities do not have the necessary powers to prosecute perpetrators (Supreme Court Report, 1999, p. 9 ).
India has attempted to launch multiple programs such as the National Slum Development Programme (NSDP) which focused on upgrading slums rather than redeveloping them. But upgrades proved too costly and under-used. Later, Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme was launched under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), which aimed to provide housing. But poor quality, high costs for beneficiaries, and project delays meant most houses remained empty or unaffordable. The In-situ Redevelopment Schemes have also not been implemented due to Legal delays and valuation challenges have stalled many projects. In most cases, the design was disconnected from people’s realities. For example, when residents were relocated far away, they lost access to jobs, schools, and health clinics. The houses were there, but their lives were broken.
Towards Sustainable Slum Development
So, what could work? Let’s imagine a city that takes slum development seriously under a sustainable framework:
- Reclaiming Plastic waste Initiative
Efficient collection of plastic waste from various producers, especially low-value plastic waste. To do this, they must offer the informal waste collectors a higher monetary incentive. This can be done in cooperation with the producers and producers of this waste. In Delhi, such a partnership is evident in East Delhi, where manufacturers offer incentives of 5 rupees per kilogram to the informal sector for multi-layer plastic (MLP) collection. Multi-layer plastics are the most common plastic packaging waste. One of the most efficient forms of recycling is the use of energy in cement kilns, making public portable toilets and installing them near every 5 blocks in the slum area. For this to successfully take place, these MLPs should be sent to the cement kilns or recycling units. As a best practice, it is crucial that this is replicated and scaled up to other cities as well. At the city level, such measures are necessary to ensure comprehensive and effective management of plastic waste.
- Strengthening segregation at a collective level
The state urban local bodies should empower the workers/Safai Karamcharis to levy fines/penalties on unsegregated waste and to refuse collection. This would encourage people to start keeping segregated dustbins at their individual level. Certain dry waste streams like paper, textiles, rubber, metals, and glass will also be considered under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as per the polluter pays principle. The policy would also regulate the mandatory use of 25% recycled materials in non-food packaging to ensure the use of recycled materials.
- Building a better waste segregation mechanism
Under this, the municipal authorities should start imposing heavy fines/Taxes on indiscriminate dumping of wet waste in landfills/ open land. It aims to reduce the virgin material use for instance the use of 20% secondary materials in new building construction and 40% in building roads and highways. Building products and materials with secondary resources should be given tax rebates as well. This would also encourage the formation of cluster-based construction and demolition waste recycling plants, in every city.
This policy allows for mandatory segregation and channelization of the C&D waste. Waste producers will have to pay charges for collection, transportation, processing, and disposal as notified by the concerned authorities. Concession contracts with treatment and recycling plants must be concluded for at least 15 years. Municipal companies/ULBs should ensure the repurchase of recycled material from reprocessing plants through a building permit system. GST reduction on processed C&D waste products to 5% from the current 18%. Green-tax exemption for C&D recycled products and transportation would also be applicable.
- Development of new standards for designated reuse of treated wastewater and guidelines for reuse of the wastewater
So far, there is a dearth of policies focusing on the treatment of sewage or wastewater reuse in India. In India, there are regional differences in terms of geography, availability of water resources, supply and demand scenario, and socio-economic structure. However, the state government needs to prioritize, incentivize and integrate wastewater recycling and reuse in domains of different ministries and programs as well as allocate funds for proper implementation. A state-level cross-sectoral committee will be set in order to promote the development of a capacity-building program on wastewater recycling for both government and private sector actors in order to fund the sewage treatment technologies and operation & management needs of sewage plants.
Thus, above mentioned policies help in improving the conditions of slums by strengthening urban greening considerations which guide housing development and management of informal settlements. The policy also recommends the inclusion of slums and informal settlements with the municipal budgetary allocation for green amenity development. It ensures the participation of non-state actors in the development of green infrastructure and incorporates residents living in low-income communities as well so that their views and values are duly acknowledged.
Lastly, the question is: will we keep ignoring slums as we pass by, or will we acknowledge that the real city lies not just in skyscrapers, but also in slums?
