13 Urban Poverty

Dr. Deeksha Bajpai Tewari

Poverty in India has been an element of the policy debate since the First Plan Period with the prime attention being on agriculture and rural development. Urban development was tackled through a emphasis on industry. At the same time as social services such as health and education provided for the urban population, there remained a determined focus on rural India in the Five Year Plans; urban poverty was not recognized as an issue in the earlier plan periods. The shift towards an urban focus is visible from the VIIth Plan Period onwards (1985-1990) with efforts towards infrastructure, environmental improvement (slum upgrading) and livelihood endorsement. Succeeding plans have progressively increased the allocation for urban development and urban poverty alleviation. Most noteworthy is the recent focus on urban renewal evidenced through the allocation under JNNURM in the 10th Five Year plan.

2. Trend in Urban Population growth

    India is truly a representative of the global trends where an increasing number of people live in urban areas. The number of towns and the complete urban population in India has increased little by little over the last 60 years .More important for policy formulation is the share of urban population to total population (Graph 1), which has grown from 17.3 per cent in 1951 to 31.16 per cent in 2011. Changeable projections place urban population at about 590 million – 600 million in 2030

3. Assessment of urban poverty and Problem being faced by Urban Poor

§  Urban poverty in India is bulky and prevalent. In 2004-05, 80.8 million people out of an estimated urban population of 309.5 million person were below the poverty line and their per month consumption was less than Rs. 538.6. These numbers make up a momentous proportion of the world’s total urban poor estimated at 291.4 million

• Over the past three decades (1973-2004), the numbers of the urban poor have risen by 34.4 per cent and the shares of the urban poor in the total from 18.7 per cent in 1973 to 26.8 per cent in 2004-05.See Graph 2
• Non-wage, informal employment is a leading attribute of the urban poor households
• Wage employment among them is partial to just about 20 per cent compared to an All-India average of about 40 per cent. It is this fact that communicates a high scale of instability to the income profile of the urban poor, and hinders their access to any form of institutional and market finance.

§  Regional Trend: Advancement in terms of plummeting the incidence of urban poverty has been extremely not smooth in the country, with a little over 40 per cent of the urban poor concentrated in the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, the NSSO data reveals that intensity of poverty has intensified further in these states, with the share of the urban poor recording an increase from 31.1 per cent in 1973-74 to 42.0 per cent in 2004-05. Conversely, urban poverty has taken a rain check much more remarkably in states such as Gujarat and Punjab; in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, urban poverty was more than the all-India average in 1983 but declined to well-below the national average in 2004-05. Consequently, th substantiation is both a noteworthy decline in some states, and noticeable increases in others.

§  Slum settlements – over and over again referred to informal settlements not including any formal title – corresponds to the most noticeable manifestation of poverty in urban India. The 2001 Census puts the slum population at 42.6 million which forms 15 per cent of the country’s total urban population and

23.1 per cent of population of cities and towns reporting slums. Further the Census suggests that slums are urban incidents restricted to big-town and cities, substantiating it with the fact that 41.6 per cent of the total slum population resides in cities with over one-million population. Informal settlements inhabit one-third of the large city spaces: 34.5 per cent of the population of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai live in slum settlements. The slum settlements have an elevated proportion (17.4 per cent) of scheduled castes compared to non-slum settlements. In addition, not surprisingly, the literacy level of slum population is lower, 73.1 per cent in comparison with 85 per cent for rest of the urban population.

§  Slum and Urban Amenities: 26 per cent of households living in slum settlements have little or no access to any provisions for garbage collection and 18 per cent suffer from inadequate drinking water, the analogous proportions for non-slum areas being 19 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. What needs to be noted is that 75 per cent of slum households have not attained any paybacks from any of the governmental programmes premeditated to assuage poverty; 15.7 per cent of households received land-related benefits and the balance received other sundry benefits.

§  Education and Urban Poor: The urban poor are prone to a dearth of a reach to education services. In 2005, around 2.1 million children were out of school in urban areas (4.34 per cent of the eligible population) From a total of 13.4 million children out of school in the country. In 2006-07, 35 cities/districts reported about 0.62 million children between the ages of 6-14 out of school against the child population of 18.5 million i.e. 3.38 per cent of child population.

§  Slums due to failure of Housing policies: Emergence of slums, as much of the incidences available both at-national and at international shows, that the reason for the problem is not so much a manifestation of demographic changes, but the outcome of the failure of the land and housing policies, and legal and delivery systems.

§  Mostly slums are located on perilous sites, vulnerable to fire and flood.

Health and Urban Poor

§     Out  of   the  three  main  indicators  for  health  ,  as  far  as  child  health  is concerned, the urban poor children fall way below the national urban average.

§  Only 53 per cent of the urban poor children are taken care by an Anganwadi Centre (AWC) and only 10.1 per cent of women had regular contact with a health worker. All this translates into poor nutritional status as well.

§  Nearly 59 per cent of urban poor women and 71.4 per cent of urban poor children suffered from diseases like anaemia. Malnutrition, measured through underweight (47.1 per cent) and stunted children (54.2 per cent), is significant among the urban poor.

Financial Exclusion:

Paucity of education and health among the urban poor is accelerated by a lack of access to finance, which is an important precondition for employment since most of the workers belonging to urban poor strata are engaged in informal sector, poverty diminution, and in the long-run sustained economic growth. On the other hand, the formal financial sector serves only a minority, with many households lacking even basic financial services. In India, only 48 per cent of citizens have reach to financial services.

§  In urban areas, with improved banking infrastructure than in rural areas, Mere existence of branches is not an assurance to access to services to the urban poor.

§  One of the main reasons why Big -scale conventional financial institutions are not noteworthy players in low-end financial markets is because their business model does not cater to the urban poor segment. There is restricted access to information on potential clients. This deciphers into a higher cost associated with serving low-income clients, which, if handled, over and over again results in the costs being transferred to the client (urban poor) in the form of a higher interest rate.

§  For example, rigorous repayment schedules may not be appropriate for the urban poor household with a cash-flow problem. In various cases intricacy of transactions and transaction costs associated with formal financial transactions, in particular the paperwork, can coerce the urban poor, who already have their own informal methods of savings.

Legislative Exclusion: In addition to all the areas as talked about above a main area where the urban poor are particularly defenseless is the lack of a legislative framework to give power to the urban poor. This also should cater to giving legislative strength to policy initiatives such as inclusive urban planning, financial empowerment of the poor, making available livelihood options, and on the whole, giving property rights to the urban poor. Safekeeping of tenure which is a prerequisite for access to formal financial institution access, access to basic services and security from evictions. The formalization of safekeeping of tenure gets expression in the formal registration of the property for the urban poor giving them the right to their lodging space.

Peri-urban areas can be defines as the fringe of the prevalent and established urban areas and are changeover areas, existing at the boundary between urban and rural populations, over and over again being converted into urban areas in the next development cycle, and are “characterized by a mix of urban and rural forms and functions”. Peri-urban areas predominantly suffer out of the ordinary problems of slums due to extensive growth, steep unstable land price increase, lack of zonal planning, making them locations where slum development thrives.

4. Key strategy to be followed to tackle Urban Poverty

⇒ Safeguarding of tenure: Safeguarding of tenure has the key to building of assets and utilization of assets for industrious purposes. Unstable tenure forces the urban poor to live with paucity of network services and financial markets. Strategies for security of tenure should empower the slum dweller to access his/her dwelling unit as a financial asset that can give assurance for loan for substantial home improvements.

⇒   Slum-up gradation as the solution of choice: In-situ slum-upgradation is a precondition to successfully address urban poverty in India. Slum improvement and upgrading is growth-inducing and if well fashioned, could become a main force of economic growth in the country.

⇒     Making of water and sanitation accesible to all urban areas: It comprises the widespread coverage of all urban population with a basic level of safe drinking water and,a clean toilet,    sewerage,  and solid waste management.

The provisioning of basic water and sanitation should not be linked with issues of land tenure and legal status. These services should be made available on the apparent   understanding    that   this   stipulation    does   not   decode   into legal entitlements of any kind.

⇒  Non-eviction strategy: A no eviction policy should be put in place in combination with a land policy aiming at the provision of developed lands for the urban poor. A noneviction policy, solitary of a proper land policy, will manifest in further expansion of slums. Land assembly, town planning and the building bye-laws regime needs to be rechecked to deregulate land markets and to make in time availability of reasonably priced land. this strategy should be implemented with the caution that evictions for the rationale of the universal social good may occur, but there should be appropriate provisions for resettlement and rehabilitation of project-affected persons. The strategy should touch central government and private lands.

Successful and institutionalized community commitment: The engagement of the urban poor community, in schemes affecting their lives, should be the foundation stone of any programme design. It should comprise involvement of the community in planning through the institutionalization of community planners, execution, and analysis /feedback of various schemes. The engagement of NGOs in programmes and schemes may be encouraged whereever suitable to the aims of the scheme.

Financial inclusion of the urban poor: Any strategy, programme and/or scheme for urban poverty alleviation, must comprise an element of financial inclusion. At the level of:

Affordable housing: this comprises of measures to enhance the access of the urban poor to credit for fresh and incremental housing, including, but not restricted to the encouragement of housing (micro-) finance institutions for the urban sector and credit guarantee measures.

Livelihoods: it is about access of the urban poor to banking and financial services for micro-enterprise establishment and sustainability,emphasising on community-based finances and loans through SHGs and TCS’.

Social security: it comprises the development of specific products for the urban poor including pensions and insurance as well as financial incentives for the attainment of development goals such as health and education.

Planning for urban poverty alleviation:Presently urban planning bodies function detached from bodies planning for urban poverty alleviation. Concerns such as land-use, which have a clear impact on the availability of land for reasonable housing for the urban poor, gets decided and planned for independent of the considerations of the poor. City-level urban poverty reduction instruments such as city-development plans, city health plans, slum-free city (and state) plans of action, urban poverty reduction strategies and other such documents must thrive into and work together with formal urban planning instruments.

In addition to this, Focussed attention must be paid to poverty and slums in peri-urban areas and the related planning instruments applicable to these areas. The involvement of the community planners in the urban planning process should be emphasised. The Government of India must take the obligatory corrective action to make sure that urban planning caters to the the poor also.

Encouragement of livelihoods and skill development of the urban poor: Livelihoods and skill development of those occupationally susceptible should be accorded priority

§  Schemes followed should be demand driven.

§  Down to business and obligatory creation/allocation of spaces within city-boundaries for the lives and work of the urban poor.

§  Suitable corrective legislative action should be undertaken to make sure that in the interests of ensuring public safety and preventing public annoyance, the rights of the urban poor to a productive livelihood assured.

Provision of a social safety net to the chronically poor: This comprises social backing in the form of pensions, insurance and cash and in-kind transfers to target the most susceptible and impoverished among the urban poor. Widespread food security, Widespread education and Widespread health care are already under consideration of the Government of India. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that programmes targeting the urban poor converge with the aims of complete social security for the urban poor.

§  Capacity  Building:  This  vital  role  demands  improved  staffing,  widespread intellectual/technical capacity, financial reinforcement and clear understanding to change how cities and states can develop these skills and better oversee the execution of schemes.

§ Convergence of approaches: There is demand need for a convergence of approaches, programmes and schemes at all levels of government, in contrast to the previous approach of different line ministries and departments . There is a requirement for a bold move to work from the identified problem (vulnerabilities) to the solution (unified mission for urban poverty alleviation).

5.  Some key Points from Urban Poverty Report 2009 of Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation

The urban population of India is on the rise but not as fast as other Asian countries India has shared the growth pattern with some of the fastest growing regions in Asia. The country has witnessed around 8 percent growth in GDP in the last couple of years. India’s urban population is growing at a faster rate than its total population. Urbanisation has been identified as a significant element of economic growth. At 28 percent, the rate of urbanisation, on the other hand, it has been slow and lower than the average for Asia. The total number of people in urban cities and towns, on the other hand , has gone up considerably. The researchers expect rate of urbanisation to also going to rise up in the coming years. With over 575 million people, India will have 41 percent of its population living in cities and towns by 2030 from the present level of 286 million.

But this success has been escorted by poverty in urban areas Urban poverty in India remains high, at over 25 percent. Over 80 million poor people live in the cities and towns of India. (Source: National Sample Survey Organisation’s survey report). This is something like equal to the population of Egypt.

This has manifested in the ‘Urbanisation of Poverty’ A huge number of states report poverty figures in urban areas much above that in rural areas. At the national level, rural poverty is much more than poverty in urban areas but the fissure between the two has decreased over the last couple of decades. The occurrence of decline of urban poverty has not accelerated with GDP growth. With the growth in urban population in the country there is rise in the incidences of poverty too.

The nature of Urban Poverty shows various problems Urban poverty throws light on the problems of housing and shelter, water, sanitation, health, education, social security and livelihoods along with special needs of susceptible groups like women, children and aged people.

Is there any relationship between migration and urban poverty The report shows that the occurrence of migration in India has shown an increase in 2001 in comparison to steady decline during 1961-1991. The economic reason remains the main reason for migration among male interstate migrants. Economically toward the rear states keep losing people to developed states. Poverty incidences were found less among migrants as compared to non-migrants but it was on the rise among rural to urban migrants. Middle and higher income groups showed greater proclivity to move. The most thriving group of migrants is urban to urban migrants in terms of type of occupation they have and their income levels due to improved education and skills they possessed. Flood of migration towards metropolitan cities shows that economic reforms have not been able to come up with much employment opportunities in small and medium towns and in rural areas.

Poor in slums do not have availability of basic services like sanitation or water Poor people live in slums which are overcrowded, over and over again polluted and having a paucity of basic civic amenities like clean drinking water, sanitation and health facilities. Almost all of them are engaged in informal sector activities where there is unvarying threat of eviction, removal, confiscation of goods and almost non-existent social security cover. A large portion of the benefits provided by public agencies are cornered by middle and upper income households. 54.71 percent of urban slums have no toilet facility. Most free community toilets built by state government or local bodies are left unusable because of the paucity of maintenance.

Postscript

1. There should be larger evenhandedness in the provision of basic services as interstate and intercity disparity has attained upsetting proportions.
2. Small and medium towns, especially in backward states, must receive special assistance from the central / state government as their economic bases are not brawny enough to generate plenty resources.
3. Constitutional amendments for decentralization must be backed up by actual devolution of powers and responsibilities and their use by the municipal bodies
4. 4.Since much of the subsidized amenities have gone to high and middle income colonies, the restructure of these programmes and schemes is needed to make sure that subsides are made explicitly through strict provisions, targeted through defenseless sections of population
5. There is immense potential for organising slum communities since the average size of size of slum is small.
6. To perk up sanitation standards, it is proposed to construct community toilets where construction of individual toilets are not possible, to broaden sewerage networks to slum areas and connect toilet outlets with that, and community management of toilets in common places.
7. Solar, bio-gas and non-conventional energy needs to be popularized for street lights as well as in household energy use everywhere possible and reasonable. Absolute coverage of slum households through electric connections should be taken up.

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