About 80 percent of low-income rental units in India exist in the informal market. These affordable units house Mumbai’s working poor and are rented out by makeshift landlords, who are often poor themselves but who capitalize on any extra space they have at home. For migrant laborers, renting makes sense. Many migrants are short-term residents, earning enough during short spurts of work to then return to their home villages. While in the city, their circumstances are precarious, and work opportunities come and go quickly. Renting, as opposed to home ownership — which has dominated the government’s policy focus for the urban poor — allows for flexibility and a fluidity that matches the migrants’ life and experiences in the city. Chetan, for example, does not pay rent when he returns to his family in his home village for months at a time. While there is certainly a place for home ownership for the urban poor — some of whom have been the fabric of this city for generations — a mixed housing stock is essential for meeting their varying shelter needs. Learn more.
Submitted by Rakhi Mehra — Thu, 05/17/2012 – 01:00
Yearlong research by Monitor Inclusive Markets in the slums and other low-income neighborhoods of Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai showed that the water quality was problematic and highly seasonal — over half of all samples did not meet government standards. In addition, residents found water difficult to access, with limited hours of availability and multiple days without supply. To respond to this dire situation, MIM has launched a project to examine this need for safe drinking water and to develop a financially sustainable, pay-per-use water plant solution that provides water in an affordable, accessible, and reliable manner. Learn more.
Submitted by Amy Lin — Mon, 05/14/2012 – 01:00
The Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), accepted by the Government of Maharashtra in 2004, included a proposal that Dharavi be divided into five sectors, based on existing transport corridors and new roads envisioned by the master plan. It also included what was nominally a way to finance the building of free housing and infrastructure for Dharavi residents. This plan quickly came under attack. Learn more.
Submitted by Mark Durham — Mon, 05/07/2012 – 01:00
After four months researching malnutrition among young children in the slums of Mumbai, Dasra, a leading strategic philanthropic organization in India, concluded that child malnutrition in Mumbai’s informal settlements is, at its core, a political and behavioral issue among key stakeholders — specifically, caregivers and public health care providers. The resulting research report focused on children from birth to age three and surveyed 50 organizations working with marginalized communities in Mumbai, including SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action), Mumbai Mobile Creches, and Apnalaya. In part two of a series on child malnutrition in Mumbai, Dasra offers insights into how caregivers’ practices can be changed. Learn more.
Submitted by Dasra — Mon, 04/23/2012 – 01:00
Much of the discussion around services to the urban poor revolves around such basic necessities as water, sanitation, land rights, and upgraded housing. The city’s emergency services — woefully unavailable even to the wealthy — are much less present in the public debate. Yet infrastructure needs and emergency response are intimately intertwined. How can the fire department respond to a fire if water services in a given area are only available for an hour each day? If slums are undocumented and unmapped, do first responders know how to navigate the narrow alleyways? Is their equipment even capable of snaking through these tightly woven lanes? Learn more.
Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 04/16/2012 – 01:00
The picture unfortunately painted in most of our minds of Dharavi, which covers some 175 hectares in the heart of Mumbai, is that of an overcrowded, densely packed, filthy slum. The more time I spend in Dharavi, however, the more I realize what a misnomer it is to label Dharavi as a slum. Don’t get me wrong: there is a significant lack of proper sanitation, ventilation, and light in Dharavi, and during the monsoon, the residents have to deal with flash floods entering their homes and are restricted in their activities. However, there’s more to the story. Learn more.
Submitted by Martina Spies — Sat, 03/31/2012 – 01:00
While some Bombayites have adopted the Bandra-Worli Sea Link as a symbol of everything they believe is right with the city, I must confess that I’m quite astonished by how many others seem to believe that Dharavi is a shining example of the city’s potential. New urban studies jargon now refers to Dharavi as “an informal city” that has been created by the boundless enterprise of its residents. In fact, when Barack Obama visited Bombay in 2011, he made it a point to praise the people living in the “winding alleys of Dharavi” for their optimism and determination. Learn more.
Submitted by Naresh Fernandes — Sat, 03/31/2012 – 01:00
Perhaps the most shocking inequalities in growth and development between the elite and the marginalized play out in India’s biggest metropolis — Mumbai, the country’s economic and financial capital, where 36 percent of slum children are malnourished. Dasra, a Mumbai-based strategic philanthropic foundation, spent four months researching malnutrition amongst children aged 0-3 years in Mumbai’s worst slums, such as Govandi and Dharavi. Almost counterintuitively, we found that malnutrition rates in urban India are often higher than in rural India and are, in fact, intricately linked with rapid urbanization, poverty, and illiteracy, requiring the urgent attention of policy makers, development practitioners, and philanthropists. Learn more.
Submitted by Dasra — Mon, 03/19/2012 – 01:00
Mumbai is a city of many “mosts,” so it’s not surprising that the superlatives extend to the city’s public transport system. The numbers there, though, are staggering: the city’s two and only rail lines, for example — the Central and Western — carry more than 7.24 million commuters every day. In comparison, the New York City Subway system has 24 rail lines through five boroughs on 656 miles of track and carries an average of 4.8 million passengers each weekday; that’s a mere 60 percent of Mumbai’s 265 miles of lines. In other words, Mumbai’s local trains are the most densely packed trains in the world. Learn more.
Submitted by Carlin Carr — Tue, 02/21/2012 – 00:00
While today’s urban India has inspired such rhetorical ear candy as “outsourcing central” and worldwide renown as epicenter of the “Indian tiger,” city life is not so promising to all of its citizens. In Mumbai, the population density is among the highest in the world at 20,000 people per square kilometer — a statistic that has nearly doubled since the 1991 census. The density is even higher in certain areas, including Dharavi — long known as Asia’s largest slum — where an estimated 600,000 people are packed into one square kilometer. In fact, 62 percent of the city’s residents live in slums — though the high profile of Bollywood stars and India’s Stock Exchange often overshadows the lived reality of the city’s majority. Read more.
Submitted by Carlin Carr — Tue, 02/21/2012 – 00:00