Slum conditions in Mumbai with reference to the access of civic amenities, India

Grace Bahalen Mundu, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The large size of slum population has posed several challenges to the policy makers and program planners. Slum dwellers suffer from poor quality of life which leads to poor health outcomes, and often worse than the rural poor. This paper presents the living conditions of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Most of the slum dwellers lack the basic necessities of life. In spite of many slums got notified by the government, one tap is shared by more than thousand persons in one of the slum compared to on an average 52 persons per tap. One third of the household have no access to electricity and most of the households are sharing community toilets. This shows that lots of work still to be done to improve their lives in slums. In spite of several govt. policies there is a need to improve the life of slum dwellers through community participation