Mumbai- Slums

Indian Metros do not give that clean appearance some cities abroad give. It is primarily because of the huge population and add to that the usual problems- you name it. And so among everything you will find slums everywhere.

Here I quote some figures from Times of India Mumbai edition 16th Dec'2005- "Maximum City, Maximum Slum".

There are as many as 42.6 million slum dwellers in India, meaning that over 4% of the population lives in dwellings unfit for human living. Mumbai tops the list. 54.1% of Mumbai's population and more than 60% of the city's children live in slums.

Greater Mumbai's 6.5 million slum dwellers far outnumbers those in any other city of India and accounts for 15% of the entire slum population of the country. [Delhi has 1.9 million followed by Kolkata with 1.5 million, Chennai with 0.8 million,, Nagpur with 0.7 million, and hyderabad with 0.6 million.]

However evaluating the slum picture as a proportion of the population of the city gives a totally different picture. Mumbai tops the list here as mentioned above. Faridabad and Meerut follows with 46.5% and 44.1%. Nagpur and Kolkata are the other two cities with over 30% of their population living in slums.
[The first picture is the daytime picture of the same slum in the night (second picture).]

....What does this mean? It is for economists to decide, but a higher portion of total population living in slums means that the cities will not be as clean or presentable as cities where the percentage of people living in slums is less. Hence you will see Mumbai and Kolkata as dirtier & drab and Delhi will look much better. And of course there will be other associated problems too.

But then what is the beauty of Mumbai? The city somehow throbs all 24 hours. And that is the beauty of Mumbai. Here I post some pictures of Bandra, where you will find lot of slums and rubble, and also the backwaters of the sea which is being reclaimed. The difference between daytime and night time is obvious.
The flyovers at Bandra Reclamation approach road.