The unabated increase in the population of slums and failure in the programmes launched to eradicate slum areas are the reasons behind Chennai being the epicenter of coronavirus pandemic in Tamil Nadu, according to Edappadi Palaniswamy, Chief Minister. “Chennai has about 87 lakh people living in narrow streets and there are several houses with 6 to 7 people staying in them,” Palaniswamy told reporters last Tuesday after presiding over a meeting of senior IAS officers and medical professionals.
The metropolis has one of the highest densities of population among south Indian cities, according to Prof C Murukadas, Tamil Nadu’ lead economist who headed the Department of Economics, University of Madras for more than two decades. He said massive urbanization and the resultant unabated increase in the number of slums have made Chennai a volcano which could explode at anytime. “We have opened a Pandora’s Box and I doubt whether we would be able to restore Chennai to its lost purity,” he told The Pioneer.
He had alerted the Governments at the Centre as well as in States about the disastrous consequences of rapid urbanization, increasing population and free-for-all entry into the country’s major metropolises in his research and the resultant book “Slum-Free Cities- A Sisyphus Challenge for India” published in 2014.
While the book won him accolades from abroad, the people who matter chose to ignore his findings. Dr Murukadas says the figure quoted by Chief Minister that 87 lakh people live in slums and overcrowded narrow lanes/streets of Chennai is way of the mark. “The Urban Agglomeration (UA) of Chennai has resulted in the city’s population crossing the 89 lakh mark in 2013 itself. UA stands for continuous urban spread constituting a town and its adjoining urban Out Growths or two or more physically contiguous towns together and any adjoining urban outgrowths of such towns,” he explained.
He said he had visited many slum dwellings in the metropolis in India and abroad. The living conditions in the units in India are shocking. “All these single room or double room units house 10 to 12 persons. Most of the men are unemployed and it is the women who are the breadwinners. Men while away their time playing cards and drinking alcohol from the earnings made by the woman of the house,” said the professor.
Quoting the estimates made by the Committee on Slum Statistics/Census, Prof Murukadas points out that the slum population constituted 75.26 million (26.31 per cent) out of the 286 million urban population of the country in 2001. “As per the estimates the slum population o India is estimated to have reached 93.06 million in 201. The slum population of Chennai could be somewhere near the 25 lakh mark. Another 25 lakh stay in narrow lanes in unhygienic conditions without basic facilities like toilet ,” he said. Toilet facilities are available at the community level only. “The extremely limited latrines and their overuse by too many persons have made the slum areas unhygienic and filthy,” he said.
He says unless the Government introduces massive population control measures India is in for major disaster. “There should be a mechanism whereby the entry of people to major metros are regulated by law. Those who are not employed and do not have even rented places to stay should not be allowed into the cities. The Slum Clearance Programmes launched by the governments were all piecemeal measures and have gone awry,” said Prof Murukadas who is working on a project to come out with a sequel to Slum Free Cities.
