No new slums in Chennai since last 26 years?

Chennai: No slums have come up in the city since the last 26 years, if one were to go by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) records.

Sources told City Express that Tamil Nadu had been a forerunner in bringing out the Slum Clearance Act in 1971, but it had not declared any new slums since the last 26 years.

Also, the baseline data of Tamil Nadu on urban poverty and slums is inadequate, the sources added.Chennai alone is estimated to have over 2 lakh families living without proper shelter.

The number of informal settlements and pavement dwellers is often understated and the city’s records of slums maintained by the Slum Clearance Board and urban local bodies, particularly in smaller cities, are often not comprehensive.

According to Transparent Chennai, the city had undergone two rounds of slum declarations, one in 1971 and the other in 1986, and since then, has not declared any new slums.  As such, a number of 'unrecognised' slums in the city have come up since then.

Balasundar of the Citizen Rights Forum said, "Of the 242 slums on both objectionable and unobjectionable lands, only 33 are located on private lands, while six have multiple ownerships. The rest are all on government lands. Yet, these slums were neither declared nor upgraded in the last 26 years." 'Objectionable land' covers areas such as government land, poromboke, canals, waterways and footpaths on which habitations are not permitted.

Interestingly, the growth in slum population has outpaced the overall urban growth over the last decade.  The slum population has more than doubled from a reported 23 lakh during Census 2001 (less than 10 per cent of urban population) to an estimated 59 lakh (17 per cent of urban population in 2011).

While the range of estimates for slum population in urban areas varies between 59 lakh to 86 lakh in 2011, housing shortage is estimated in the range of 26-28 lakh.The recent effort to map slums under the Slum-free City Action Plans is a welcome step in this regard, felt rights activists.

The share of urban population is expected to increase from 48 per cent in 2011 to 67 per cent by 2020.