10% of Mumbai earns less than Rs 600 per month

Mumbai is a city of contrasts — despite having the highest per capita income in India, more than 12 lakh people or little under 10% of its population earn below Rs 600 a month. The revelation comes in the Human Development Report commissioned for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and partly funded by UNDP. Although more than half of Mumbai’s population live in sub-human conditions in shanties, slums occupy just 6% of the city’s total land. ‘‘Is there justification to continue to call this city, once the London of the east, the Urbs Prima in India? Given the levels of deprivation and the size of deprived population, it would be natural to ask: whose city is Mumbai, anyway?,’’ the report asks caustically. Amid the glitz the city houses, the urban poverty is glaring. The official statistics reveal a dismal picture. At least 12.17 lakh or close to 10% of Mumbai’s population earn an income of less than Rs 591 per month, according to the study. Interestingly, the city has a per capita income of Rs 65,361 in 2006-’07, which is twice the country’s average per capita income of Rs 29,382.