Our urban fault lines

The world engages in conversations around urban challenges and opportunities to observe Urban October. The month-long events begin with World Habitat Day, on the first Monday of October, which fell on October 3, this year and focused on the theme ‘Mind the Gap. Leave no one and no place behind’. Indeed, cities in India will add more population in the coming years, and this is the right time to ensure our urban policies and programs leave no one and no place behind in this journey. We look at inequality in Indian cities and their possible solutions.

India became the world’s fifth biggest economy surpassing Britain. It does not mean all is well, and there is nothing to worry. As Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Roads Transport and Highways, recently said: India is a rich country with a poor population facing issues like starvation, unemployment, casteism, untouchability and inflation. He stated the ground reality. He said that the nation had to address the social and economic disparity.
Globally, nations have made progress in making the world a better place for everyone. There is still a long road ahead. In 2015, over 190 countries agreed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The most important goals include eradicating poverty, ending inequality, fighting climate change and ensuring no one is left behind. All nations agreed to make sure no one is left behind, irrespective of who they are or where they live. The cities are frowned upon for their energy consumption and emissions. But they are appreciated for generating employment and strengthening the economy of nations. Cities are also hubs where solutions to bigger problems are derived. Urbanisation is a reality, and we cannot do away with it. Countries need to find the best way out of the given situation.
The most important task would be eradicating poverty and improving their economic situation with carefully thought interventions. All the roads to prosperity would undoubtedly go through cities, and the nations must mend their urban operations carefully to ensure the caravan of prosperity is not sunk in their cities. Countries already struggling with financial woes cannot afford to go the Sri Lanka way, and they need to understand the opportunities at their disposal and the challenges ahead. Else, all their efforts to mend things and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals can go awry.

Economic Disparity: Global overview

By closely looking at numbers, one will find that India is not a rich country, considering the size of its population and share of the global household wealth. About 18 per cent of the world population lives in India, but if one looks at the global household wealth share, it is a mere 3.5 per cent. In contrast, the United States of America houses only about 4.5 per cent of the global population but has a global household wealth share to the tune of 29 per cent. China is almost at par; about 17.5 per cent share of the global population and about the same share in global household wealth. Our per capita income is also relatively low at 2000 USD. India may not be on the list of the poorest countries in the world but hovers somewhere between the poor and lower-middle-income countries. The World Bank puts it in the category of the lower-middle income category.
India has greatly improved in the last couple of decades and produced many billionaires. According to a Credit Suisse report, India has about 4000 ultra-high net worth individuals whose net worth is in the north of 50 million USD. The number in the USA is 140,000 and in China, 32000.
India needs to grow faster, and the process will be expedited in cities. Cities will grow quicker and more industrialisation is bound to happen. This will require better services and infrastructure development in urban centres. It will also raise concerns about emissions which need to be tackled simultaneously.
Where could India tackle disparity better? It’s obvious—in cities. I recently listened to a lecture, ‘Gesture of Human Occupation,’ delivered by famed Indian architect Charles Correa a couple of years ago. He tells the tale of two residents from his village. Both were from different communities—one considered an upper caste and another a lower caste. They never sat next to each other back in the village. But when they came to Mumbai, he saw them sitting next to each other in a Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Bus in Mumbai. The humble BEST bus in Mumbai city removed the social barrier that was difficult to remove through intensive government interventions and social initiatives in their native places. This is true not just for Mumbai but for any other city. Cities are a great equaliser of social inequalities, at least. But there are different inequalities which are plaguing our cities. The disparities may not arise by the caste or community one belongs to but because of one’s financial status.

Poor in cities & housing

Every city has two cities in it. One is the city of high-rise buildings, and another is of squatters. And, at times, the clashes between the classes come to the fore. There is also a difference in the quality of services rendered to these localities. It is starkly visible in terms of their access to drinking water and sanitation services, road and other essential infrastructure facilities, etc. One can take a walk in such localities in metropolitan cities and observe the difference. For example, take a walk in Seelampur and then in Defense Colony in Delhi. In India, about 11 per cent population, as per the 2011 Census, resides in cities. The number could be higher now. The World Bank puts it at 35 per cent of the total urban population as slum population.
Housing is a major issue for the poor people coming to cities. In the absence of adequate and affordable facilities available in cities, these people start living as squatters or in slums. The living conditions in these areas cannot be considered adequate. These housing options are not free if you have a specific locality in mind because of the proximity to your workplace. A cab driver in Mumbai said that living in slums is not free or cheap. They had to pay about 8,000 to 10,000 monthly for a roof over their head. What is the price of buying a room in these places? He replies that the price for one BHK in a convenient location begins at forty lakh rupees. This is the price of one room with no toilet or kitchen. Just to mention, about 60 per cent of Mumbai’s population lives in slums. India’s early experiments with slum redevelopment have taught us that housing facilities must be employment-linked. It is obvious that people do not come to cities just to live. They come to cities in search of a better life. They could be seeking employment or better educational or health facilities for their close ones. When the slum redevelopment projects provided them housing far from their original locations, those projects fell flat. People took allotment of those houses and shifted to another convenient location from where they could conveniently work. If you walk around slums in Mumbai, for example, Dharavi, one can easily witness those places are not used only for living but also for running businesses. It could not be the same for every slum, but these multiple factors must be considered when planning a slum redevelopment plan or a new housing facility for the poor or migrants. India has allotted hundreds of millions of houses to the poor. In 2015, the Government of India assessed the housing demand at 1.12 crore and introduced Pradhanmantri Awaas Yojna (Urban). After seven years, GoI has sanctioned 1.23 crore houses and delivered about 62 lakh houses. Another scheme started by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is Affordable Rental Housing. COVID-19 underlined India’s urban fault lines in cities. People who were the main workforce responsible for running cities, constructing buildings, and running factories and industries, could not live there for long when the Pandemic struck. There was no place for them to live and sustain themselves safely. The Pandemic resulted in reverse migration as cities did not have the means to sustain the migrants. The living conditions were not adequate considering the health crisis. People lived in cramped places and used common washrooms. Then the lockdown happened, and people who earned daily and spent daily faced a big challenge of survival. They preferred to move to their villages to sustain themselves through the crisis. The government learned that there was a gap which needed to be filled. The government recognised that urban migrants need decent rental housing at an affordable rate at their work sites. The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) initiated Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs), a sub-scheme under Pradhan Mantri AWAS Yojana- Urban (PMAY-U). The primary purpose is to provide ease of living to the urban poor with access to dignified, affordable rental housing close to their workplace. As per the government vision statement, under the scheme, the government targets to utilise existing government-funded vacant houses to convert into ARHCs through Public Private Partnership or by Public Agencies; and the construction, operation and maintenance of ARHCs by public/private entities on their available vacant land. The scheme will be implemented in all statutory towns, notified planning areas, and under special area/ development authorities/industrial development authorities. There are about 83,000 vacant govt houses available across India out of which about 5,500 have been converted into ARHCs. It is important to note that only four states and Union Territories, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, have converted vacant government houses into ARHCs. Out of 5,500 ARHCs, about 5,000 are from Chandigarh and Gujarat. The details of Chandigarh are available on the Ministry’s website, and it has decided the rent of those flats at3,000 per month. And, no information is available if any project has been kicked off with Public Private Partnership (PPP) under ARHCs. There is a need for scaling up of scheme in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The maintenance of these houses need to be ensured for the long-term success of the scheme.
Our urban fault lines can be addressed only when cities and local government in collaboration with the state and central government and other stakeholders try to make cities inclusive. People belonging to vulnerable groups, disabled, elderly, children and women, should be given priority and their needs addressed. Like in the last issue, we highlighted, the urban ecosystem cannot survive without its wetlands, waterbodies and forests. Cities can’t fix their fault lines in silos because everything is connected.

I recently listened to a lecture, ‘Gesture of Human Occupation,’ delivered by famed Indian architect Charles Correa a couple of years ago. He tells the tale of two residents from his village. Both were from different communities—one considered an upper caste and another a lower caste