Housing in India
Housing in India is very modest.
According to the Times of India, "a majority of Indians have per capita space equivalent to or less than a 10 feet x 10 feet room for their living, sleeping, cooking, washing and toilet needs." and "one in every three urban Indians lives in homes too cramped to exceed even the minimum requirements of a prison cell in the US."[1] The average is 103 sq ft per person in rural areas and 117 sq ft per person in urban areas.[1]
44 percent of rural households have access to electricity.[2] Although cities have better facilities than villages, no city in India provides full-day water supply.[3] A 2007 study by the Asian Development Bank showed that in 20 cities the average duration of supply was only 4.3 hours per day. The longest duration of supply was 12 hours per day in Chandigarh, and the lowest was 0.3 hours per day in Rajkot.[4] Some 700 million Indians do not have access to a proper toilet[5] and the situation is even worse in slums across Indian cities.[6][7]
Cities
Mumbai
Mumbai experiences the same major urbanisation phenomenons seen in many fast growing cities in developing countries: widespread poverty and unemployment, poor public health and poor civic and educational standards for a large section of the population. With available space at a premium, Mumbai residents often reside in cramped, relatively expensive housing, usually far from workplaces, and therefore requiring long commutes on crowded mass transit, or clogged roadways. The number of migrants to Mumbai from outside Maharashtra during the 1991-2001 decade was 1.12 million, which amounted to 54.8% of the net addition to the population of Mumbai.[8]
Most people in Mumbai live in slums. They cover only 6-8% of the city's land even though 62% of the population lives in them.[9][10][11][12] Slum growth rate in Mumbai is greater than the general urban growth rate.[13] Financial Times has writes that "If Mumbai is the world’s slum capital, Dharavi is the grand panjandrum of the Mumbai slums".[14] Dharavi, Asia's largest slum is located in central Mumbai and houses over 1 million people.[15] Slums are a growing tourist attraction in Mumbai.[16][14][17]
Most of the remaining live in chawls and footpaths. Chawls are quintessentially Mumbai phenomenon of multi-storied tenements typically a bit higher quality than slums. 80 per cent of chawls have only one room.[18] Pavement dwellers refers to Mumbai dwellings built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets.[19] Only around 10 to 15 per cent of people in Mumbai live in other forms of housing such as bungalows or high-rises.[20] Overall three quarters of Mumbai population lives in one-room housings.[21] In 2007, Mumbai condoniums were the priciest in the developing world at around $9,000 to $10,200 per square meter.[22]
Rent control laws have helped to create the housing shortage.[22]
Corruption
In cities and villages throughout India, mafias consisting of municipal and other government officials, elected politicians, judicial officers, real estate developers and law enforcement officials, acquire, develop and sell land in illegal ways.[23] Sometimes, government land or land ostensibly acquired for some legitimate government purpose is then handed over to real estate developers who build commercial and residential properties and sell them in the open market, with the connivance of administrative and police officials.[24] In one set of allegations in Karnataka, a lake was filled in and government buildings torn down after illegal transfers to a developer by mafia-connected officials.[25] Eminent domain laws, intended to procure private land at relatively low prices for public benefit or redistribution to poorer people under social justice programs, are abused to pressure existing landholders to sell land to a government entity, which transfers the land to developers at those low prices, and who in turn sell it back on the market at much higher prices.[26][27]
Computerization of records relating to the classification of tracts and land ownership is a key tool in countering the illegal activities of land mafias, since it creates transparency on all information relating to a given parcel of land. This approach has been effective in Bangalore,[28] but efforts to extend it elsewhere have sometimes met with strong resistance by land mafias, manifesting itself as bureaucratic inaction.[29]
Indian property bubble
References
- ^ a b "33% of Indians live in less space than US prisoners". Times of India. 2008.
- ^ "Reforming the Power Sector: Controlling Electricity Theft and Improving Revenue" (PDF). The World Bank.
- ^ "Development Policy Review". World Bank.
- ^ ADB 2007, p. 3
- ^ "A special report on India: Creaking, groaning: Infrastructure is India's biggest handicap". The Economist. 11 December 2008.
- ^ The Politics of Toilets, Boloji
- ^ Mumbai Slum: Dharavi, National Geographic, May 2007
- ^ "HIGHLIGHTS OF ECONOMIC SURVEY OF MAHARASHTRA 2005-06" (PDF). DIRECTORATE OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, PLANNING DEPARTMENT, GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA, MUMBAI. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
- ^ Slums, Stocks, Stars and the New India
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Mumbai, India, development incomplete with 62 percent living in slums".
- ^ "Whose city is it anyway? - Present slum area not more than eight per cent of total land?". The Telegraph India.
- ^ Slums
- ^ a b "A walking tour around the slums of Mumbai". Financial Times. February 6 2009.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ National Geographic: Dharavi, Mumbai's Shadow City
- ^ "Amid the skyscrapers, slum tourism". 2006.
- ^ "'Slumdog Millionaire' boosts Mumbai's 'slum tourism' industry". ExpressIndia.
- ^ "Slum upgradation beneficial than rehabilitation: Report".
- ^ Sundar Burra & Liz Riley (1999). "Electricity to pavement dwellers in Mumbai" (PDF).
- ^ "Mumbai Slums".
- ^ Squatters as Developers? By Vinit Mukhija
- ^ a b "Mumbai housing is the priciest in the developing world". Global Property Guide.
- ^ K.R. Gupta and J.R. Gupta, "Indian Economy, Vol# 2", Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2008, ISBN 8126909269. Snippet: ... the land market already stands subverted and an active land mafia has already been created ...
- ^ "India after busting land mafia organized crime involving former government officials and apartment developers". India Daily. 2005-08-01. Retrieved 2008-10-30. Snippet: ... Low priced subsidized land is being illegally developed ... permits are obtained illegally through a network of mafia style operators that involved the under world, former Indian Administrative Service officers and even the cops ... alleged misappropriation of land in the name of CGHS and selling them at very high rates after construction of flats ...
- ^ "Land mafia buries lake, encroaches govt land". Deccan Herald. 2005-10-10. Retrieved 2008-10-30. Snippet: ... The watershed department had built a check dam at a cost of Rs 1.5 lakh in 2006 to improve the groundwater level. But the land mafia has taken things into its own hands and got it covered ...
- ^ N. Vittal, "India: Technology and a vision for the future", The Icfai University Press, 2004, ISBN 8178813467. Snippet: ... Another law which had a totally contradictory impact was the Urban Land Ceiling Act which provided tremendous opportunity for the land mafia. The poor people who were supposed to benefit in the process were nowhere to be seen. ...
- ^ Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narayana Madhava Ghatate, "Decisive Days", Shipra Publications, 1999. Snippet: ... In villages on the outskirts of the cities, land is being grabbed by force by the lathi-wielding miscreants. This land is public land. Skyscrapers are being built ...
- ^ N. Vittal, "Roots of Effective Governance", Icfai University Press, 2007, ISBN 8131411567. Snippet: ... transparency ... was introduced in allotment of sites. The element of discretion involved in this process was removed. The whole system was totally computerized. The allotment details were published on the website and the lease cum-sale agreement was done away with. Absolute sale deeds were issued ...
- ^ "A State Unimagined in Law: A Wrong Without a Remedy". Arun Shourie. 2008-05-26. Retrieved 2008-10-30. Snippet: ... For this purpose the Centre formulated a scheme for the computerization of land records. It pledged to meet the entire expense of the task. About Rs 5 crores have been given to the State (Bihar) for this purpose; it has been able to utilise only Rs 22 lakhs! The target is that by December next year there shall be one hundred per cent coverage of “Jot Bahi/Khatta”: actual coverage till now? Ten per cent. ...