The Hindu        12.09.2016

No slum notified in Chennai after 1985: Report

Urban chaos:Experts say instead of providing decent housing, slum dwellers are being relocated to faraway places. —File photo

Despite hundreds of slums cropping up in the city, not a
single slum has been officially recognised since 1985 by the Tamil Nadu
Slum Clearance Board, said a report released by Information and
Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC).

After
the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Act of 1971 was passed, around 1,202
slums in Chennai were recognised, and 17 more were added to the list in
1985. Most of the slums were improved in situ, either by building
tenements or by providing basic services, as mandated in the Act.

However,
not a single new slum has been officially recognised in the city since
then. Experts claim that instead of providing decent housing, slum
dwellers are being relocated to Perumbakkam, Ezhil Nagar and faraway
places, where they end up losing their livelihood.

“The
officials are ghettoising them instead of providing them a place
nearby,” said G. Selva, of the CPI (M). “Children drop out of schools,
men and women lose their jobs. Many end up doing antisocial activities
to eke out a living,” he said.

Based on an analysis
of the information available in the Slum Free Plan of Action of various
districts in Tamil Nadu, the report revealed that many still remain
non-notified across the State. No slum is notified under the Rajiv Awas
Yojana in the Salem district. Out of the 100 slums surveyed in
Thoothukudi, 87 remain non-notified.

An all-India
survey conducted in 2012 by the National Sample Survey Office, stated
that there were 2,364 slums with 5,88,611 households in urban areas of
the State, out of which notified slums were 1,156 comprising of 2,45,089
households, constituting 49 per cent of the total slums.

In
reply, the government stated that declaration of slums would only
encourage slums dwellers to encroach vacant lands and claim rights over
them, besides demanding basic services. Meagre allocation of funds by
the State government for meeting the needs of slum dwellers was also
cited as a reason for non-notification of slum areas.

“The
unresolved issue that needs to be answered is that who is now
responsible for declaration of slums. Is it the Urban Local Body or the
TNSCB? As per the RTI response we received, the TNSCB is no longer
declaring slums,” said Vanessa Peter, policy researcher, IRCDUC.

Work in progress

Officials
from the Board said they were currently in the process of notifying
slums in the city. “We began the process last year and it is in
progress,” said a senior official from TNSCB.

About
51 per cent of slum dwellers in the city, according to the report,
belonged to Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Anbuselvam, Dalit scholar and
activist, asks, “Why can’t the State not provide them a house near their
place of livelihood and who is the beneficiary of the land, once they
are evicted.” “Most of these people are underprivileged and
marginalised; they must be helped, not thrown out,” he said.