Slums in South Asia

[DaRk WaVe]

Hilariously ironic. Despite being the "land of slums" and full of "slumdogs", an average Indian is still richer than an average Pakistani.

What we need to focus at is the redevelopment of these slums, we all know South Asia has slums. What does it matter of the biggest is in Karachi or Mumbai or Dhaka or whatever.

why dont u ask ToI about this,Have u read the article from ToI????? stupids have not even defined slum & they are calling whole of Karachi 'slum', there is no UNDP report on it, its just another ToI carp which they keep on posting, even 10 year old kid can differentiate b/w a orangi & Karachi, but ToI cant, ToI has tried to prove that all bad things exists in Pak but they have, unfortunately, failed miserably

 

[Developereo]

an average Indian is still richer than an average Pakistani.

"Average" don't bring home the bacon.

Haq's Musings: UNDP Reports Pakistan Poverty Declined to 17%

Center for Poverty Reduction (CPRSPD), backed by the United Nations Development Program(UNDP), has estimated that Pakistan's poverty at national level declined sharply from 22.3 percent in 2005-06 (versus India's poverty rate of 42%) to 17.2 percent in 2007-08. This poverty estimate has been validated by the World Bank

What we need to focus at is the redevelopment of these slums, we all know South Asia has slums. What does it matter of the biggest is in Karachi or Mumbai or Dhaka or whatever.

Fully agree.

 

[shravan]

A little offtopic.

Slums problems should be not be solved by building better infrastructure. Most of the people will sell the houses and they will create new slums in other areas. And there will be family problems and there will be fights because of the sudden money.

First all the slum children should given free education & the government should pay the children & provide food for attending the school.

Second slums are best places for starting small scale industries because of the cheap labor. Government & Private companies should be allowed to open manufacturing companies inside these slums and nearby.

Soon they will be educated and they will understand how politicians are using them and this people will start to change.

Just my own experience...

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

A little offtopic.

Slums problems should be not be solved by building better infrastructure. Most of the people will sell the houses and they will create new slums in other areas. And there will be family problems and there will be fights because of the sudden money.

First all the slum children should given free education & should for attending the school the government should pay the kids & provide food.

Second slums are best places for starting small scale industries because of the cheap labor. Government & Private companies should be allowed to open manufacturing companies inside these slums and nearby.

Soon they will be educated and they will understang how politicians are making a fool of them and this people will change.

Just my own experience...

That is not off topic sir, that is very on-topic and precisely how the discussion should unfold.

 

[Goodperson]

A little offtopic.

Slums problems should be not be solved by building better infrastructure. Most of the people will sell the houses and they will create new slums in other areas. And there will be family problems and there will be fights because of the sudden money.

First all the slum children should given free education & the government should pay the children & provide food for attending the school.

Second slums are best places for starting small scale industries because of the cheap labor. Government & Private companies should be allowed to open manufacturing companies inside these slums and nearby.

Soon they will be educated and they will understand how politicians are using them and this people will start to change.

Just my own experience...

Agreed as long as the land prices are high, In India lot of migration takes place to big cities people migrate in search of Jobs and this is part of problem in every developing country. It was not prominent earlier because people used to stay in villages and economy was agriculture based. Increase in population is not helping here. Plus Shanty towns are breeding ground for anti-social elements.

 

[shravan]

Agreed as long as the land prices are high, In India lot of migration takes place to big cities people migrate in search of Jobs and this is part of problem in every developing country.

But you are not giving the solution to the current problem.

Plus Shanty towns are breeding ground for anti-social elements.

I know that and the politicians want them to be like that for their own gains (Goonda Girdi) and they even get the vote bank.

Education can only change these people and their lifestyle.

 

[Goodperson]

But you are not giving the solution to the current problem.

Land prices in Mumbai are too high and their are plenty of opportunities and ever existing requirement of cheap labor. IMHO even development plans will not solve the problem need to create more Job opportunities invillages and small towns.

I know that and the politicians want them to be like that for their own gains (Goonda Girdi) and they even get the vote bank.

Education can only change these people and their lifestyle.

Education will certainly help but part of the problem is due to political system and vote bank politics. Children in shanty towns are deprived from birth and will always be victims of such environment they can be misled easily.
Their is no easy solution for this.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

As nice and easy a simple solution like constructing new housing complexes to replace the shanties and huts sounds, it is not necessarily a solution to the problems.

Take for example the Chicago housing projects (from Wiki):

Cabrini-Green is a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA)12 public housing development on Chicago's North Side, bordered by Evergreen Avenue on the north, Sedgwick Street on the east, Chicago Ave on the south, and Halsted Street on the west. At its peak, Cabrini-Green was home to 15,000 people, living in mid- and high-rise apartment buildings. Over the years, gang violence and neglect created terrible conditions for the residents, and the name "Cabrini-Green" became synonymous with the problems associated with public housing in the United States.

As of 2008, around 4,700 residents remained in Cabrini-Green.[2] Most of the buildings have been razed and the entire neighborhood is being redeveloped into a combination of high-rise buildings and row houses, with the stated goal of creating a mixed-income neighborhood, with some units reserved for public housing tenants.

Given high levels of illiteracy, lack of vocational skills and a general lack of access to decent education, health-care and other services, limiting reform to such areas to making them physically appealing via new housing is merely painting over the problem.

I am not sure whether the Dharavi reforms involve more than new construction (perhaps someone can post more on the issue) but the Orangi welfare project I posted about seems to be a lot more comprehensive in terms of addressing resident needs long term and actually enabling them to move out of that vicious cycle.

 

[EagleEyes]

Development in Orangi/Nazimabad

Panoramio - Photo of Road connecting North Nazimabad with Orangi Town.

 

[Peshwa]

why dont u ask ToI about this,Have u read the article from ToI????? stupids have not even defined slum & they are calling whole of Karachi 'slum', there is no UNDP report on it, its just another ToI carp which they keep on posting, even 10 year old kid can differentiate b/w a orangi & Karachi, but ToI cant, ToI has tried to prove that all bad things exists in Pak but they have, unfortunately, failed miserably

No need to get so emotional "emo-girl"....

I think what defines the size of the slum is the number of people living in it....apparantly 1.8MM people live in Orangi town compared to 1MM residents of Dharavi.....
However Dharavi also has an internal economy that produces close to $400-$500 Million in revenue annually, which the Orangi town fails to match....

However I agree that the report is pretty useless as far as Im concerned.....Whether 1.8MM or 1MM.. as long as poverty exists, we should be ashamed....and such reports to show one is better than the other or worse is just an indication of how low our mentality has sunk......

 

[muse]

Orangi versus Dharavi



Thursday, September 10, 2009
Farzana Versey

He parted the dull grey curtain with a flowery print. Inside, a group of men of all shapes, sizes and ages, shuffled as images of entwined couples moaning flickered on a bulbous old TV screen. The moment some light slithered into the room, it was startled eyes and hands akimbo, almost in a cease-fire pose. I wanted to laugh, but Muthaiah motioned them not to bother about me. I wasn't a cop. Cops too visited, watched the show and extracted money from them.

In the 90s, video parlours that showed blue films were big business. Muthaiah was the entrepreneur of Dharavi, a hero-villain. It was easy for him; he was once a henchman of Don Varadarajan. His parents had moved here from a village in South India decades ago when the place had developed from marshland to tenements that began to spread like a gathering storm. His father had left them after producing three children. By the time he could walk, talk and demand cheap plastic toys, he had to become a man to fend for the family. His first job was with a bootlegger. "I was good and cheated my boss, that's why I got to join the gang."

If a metaphor for Dharavi is needed, it would be found in his persona – poverty, spunk, drama, power, fear and a hierarchy that makes sure that poverty is not a leveller.

Soon enough, one-storey houses had an extra floor, like a pack of cards and just as precarious. The airless rooms were reached with a ladder placed inside. These illegal constructions had the blessings of slum lords who collected hafta every month.

I sat with Farhat bi in a room lit by a naked bulb even in the afternoon. Her husband worked as a junior artiste in films. He was at home. "Kaam nahin mila," he said as he brushed his teeth with a twig. Farhat was a seamstress. Her clients were from lower middle-class homes outside the Dharavi belt. As the machine creaked, she recounted her life story, brief and yet telling. "Bachchon ke liye sochna padta hai. Lekin yahaan koi danga-fasaad nahin hota."

There is no place for communal disparities. In fact, what the residents worry about are do-gooders. When I cornered Satish, who carried a cycle repair kit, his first question was: "Woh didi waali tau nahin hai?" We went into a tea shop and sat on a rickety bench. "Aye, kya bolti tu?" was the song that captured the Bambaiyya patois and bravado; it seemed like an anthem here. It played at full volume. Satish ordered kadak chai and bun maska. He asked for a thanda for me, imagining I'd prefer a bottled drink. I would, but he wanted to have an upper hand. Dharavi is about such arrogance. I chose tea. He slurped it from the saucer and queried, "Tu kya karti idhar?" I was amused by his comfort with lack of respect in addressing a person much older than him.

Child labour; I was writing about it. He was disgusted. "Kaam nahin karega tau peit kaisa bharega? Bada ho ke sab ko karneka, tau abhi se ich shtart kar liya. Taim nahin." He seemed busy. I went to the tanneries and found young boys surrounded by the smell of burning animal hide. Furniture factories showed similar scenes. Hands were calloused with age as faces retained a frayed innocence.

Their creations are displayed in fancy stores and they don't know about it. Recently, I drove past the area. It was late in the evening and bright tubelights hid the ***** of illicit liquor made in greasy drums as gutter water seeped in and used batteries added the extra zing to nasha. What shone were bags and antique chairs through glass fronted shops that had names like Enigma. Today, it is as fashionable as distressed jeans, the slits deliberate.

Dharavi has now lost out to Karachi's Orangi as the largest slum in Asia.

Orangi has always had 'town' suffixed to its name. It has neat divisions and is surrounded by areas that might be quite similar, like Gulshan-e-Iqbal or Gulberg. There is a bond of demand and supply. Orangi supplies labour, space and a cosmopolitanism similar to Dharavi. It is essentially mohajir dominated, the dregs of Karachi finding place here. But Pathans too came in, partly as a result of the needs of a city that required gun protection and a poppy high.

It was the push of poverty that made the residents enhancers of their own destiny. The town status was granted only in 2001. It has resulted in several development measures and, therefore, lacks the canniness of dirty streets. Vazir Ali's family had moved to Nazimabad after partition and brought along their leather business. "Small-scale," he said. His workshop is in Orangi. "It is expensive in the main areas and I only manufacture so it does not matter." His products won't have a 'Made in Orangi' label, though.

It appears like lower middle class chawl areas in Mumbai. Perhaps because it does not have a history as long as Dharavi, which is a century old and has reinvented itself to the lowest depths till it became a celebrity. Travel operators run a 'real Bombay' tour to show how people here live and work.

Orangi might not fall for this. It is a hidden township surrounded by respectability; even the little boys scurrying with tea seem to defer to your presence. I asked a woman for directions. She gave it impassively. There is an acceptance and you don't see much status variations. Conversation is difficult, unless you want to buy something. I opted for pirated CDs. The young man would not tell me his name. He refused to acknowledge my Urdu and spoke in broken English. He recognised a tourist from afar. "Software?" He had all possible software available. And music, the covers garish, plenty from Hindi films. "Any qawwali?" I asked. He shook his head. "Not selling."

Elsewhere, close to a small shrine, they do sell qawwali and Sufi music. Strings of flowers smother other smells. Orangi needs a camouflage to justify itself as a Karachi township.

Dharavi hits you in the face as you drive to the east part of Mumbai, the greenery stinking of turd dropped in malnourished pellets. It isn't Danny Boyle's chocolate soufflé version.


The writer is a Mumbai-based columnist and author of A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan. Email: kaaghaz. kalam***********

 

[blueoval79]

^^^^

The fact that Orangi is Biggest slum In Asia...has struck Some Pakistani Very Hard...They are coming up with these kind of cooked stories in their Print media....

 

[muse]

The writer is a Mumbai-based columnist and author of A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan

I don't know Blueoval, but seems there are some in India who may not be playing the Times of India's Improved Self Esteem through slum comparison scheme.

 

[Gabbar]

7,000 slums in Dharavi sold for Rs 700 cr ​

MUMBAI: While tony Cuffe Parade recently witnessed the country’s second highest apartment deal at Rs 93,000 a sq ft, a real estate goldmine is
quietly developing at the other end of the island city. Slum enclave Dharavi, on the verge of a Rs 15,000-crore redevelopment project, has speculators running amuck to buy up its minuscule shanties.

The trend was discovered by Pune-based NGO, Mashal, soon after it completed an exhaustive 18-month-long survey of the 590-acre sprawl. The NGO says that 6,000 to 7,000 slum dwellings have been sold in Dharavi over the past four months—possibly to individual investors who expect the Dharavi Redevelopment Project to kick off shortly. The total value of slums sold so far comes to a staggering Rs 700 crore.

During the survey, Mashal used a sophisticated software called the Geographical Information System to map each and every structure and household in the shanty town. The NGO was appointed by the Slum Redevelopment Authority following protests and criticism that the project was being implemented without anyone knowing the ground realities.

Architect-planner Sharad Mahajan of Mashal and his co-ordinator in Dharavi, Dinesh Prabhu, told TOI that each slum tenement—which is barely 120-200 sq ft in size—was being sold for Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh. Commercial units, around 150 sq ft, are selling for anywhere between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 30 lakh.

“Those who have received photo passes, which makes them eligible for rehabilitation, are charging a premium,’’ said Mahajan.

Although there is a suspicion that builders could be buying over these slums, Mahajan claims that the buyers seem to be individual investors out to make a fast buck. However, government and BMC sources, who confirmed Mashal’s findings, said there was no way people buying the slum tenements could get brand-new homes under the rehab scheme, since the photo passes would be in the sellers’ names.

“It is a very fluid situation in Dharavi. After you finish a survey, the situation changes the very next day,’’ said Mahajan. A top state government source recently told this newspaper that the Dharavi project could well turn out to be a “second Enron’’.

A lot of behind-the-scenes political manoeuvring is on to ensure that only certain builders get this lucrative project. As reported by TOI in the past, there is a concerted effort by some developers to form a cartel to grab the project. According to sources both in the government and within the real estate industry, a few of the 14 shortlisted developers for the Dharavi project are backed by powerful state politicians. Only five developers will be selected to redevelop the five zones in Dharavi.

In July, the state government twice postponed the opening of the bids, giving the flimsy reason that it had not finalised the final notification for the project. However, sources said there were other reasons for the delay. “There is huge money at stake. The project was expected to be cleared before the elections. But there was a last-minute glitch. Now the new government will take a call after it comes to power next month,’’ the source said.

 

[Hutchroy]

U mean ToI fact. all right u win..

Well, here is the news from The Daily Telegraph - LONDON :

Karachi’s Orangi beats Slumdog Millionaire’s Dharavi in Mumbai as Asia’s largest slum

Mumbai’s Dharavi, the squalid shanty town that provides the backdrop to the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, has been displaced by Orangi in Karachi as Asia’s largest slum, according to a new development report.

The report, compiled by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation with assistance from the United National Development Programme, found that while Dharavi has 57,000 families living in overcrowded huts with poor sanitation, Orangi on the outskirts of Karachi is home to more than a million people living in poverty.

Since the release of Slumdog Millionaire earlier this year, Dharavi’s notoriety has become global, and its inhabitants have been identified with malnutrition, disease, violence, child slavery, begging and organised crime.

But the Brihanmumbai report said its reputation was no longer justified. “Dharavi is not Asia’s largest slum, Karachi’s Orangi Township has surpassed Dharavi,” it claimed.

Orangi has become notorious in its own right as an illegal settlement where rival ethnic Pathan and Bihari gangs clash and Islamic terrorists go into hiding. Its people are denied government social services because it has no official status.

But Parveen Rehman, of the Orangi Pilot Project, said the word “slum” did not do justice to its hard-working people, who had developed their own welfare system.

“People are poor but they are not destitute, they’re working class. It’s one of the poorest settlements. People have arranged their own schools, clinics and water supply. They are a great example of people helping themselves.

“The biggest problems are security and employment. It is a hide out for terrorists and criminals. It’s easy to disappear here,” she said.