Slumdia

Nearly one in every six urban Indian residents lives in a slum, newly released Census data shows. The new numbers are significantly lower than the slum growth that had been projected for India.
“Our own projections were that the all-India slum population would be 27.5% by 2011, so the new data comes as a pleasant surprise,” Arun Kumar Misra, secretary in the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, said. The slum populations in individual cities like Mumbai was also lower than expected, Mishra said.
The census defines a slum as “residential areas where dwellings are unfit for human habitation” because they are dilapidated, cramped, poorly ventilated, unclean, or “any combination of these factors which are detrimental to the safety and health”, registrar general of India C Chandramouli said. Roughly 1.37 crore households, or 17.4% of urban Indian households lived in a slum in 2011, data released by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner’s office showed.
With the exception of sanitation, the indicators on housing amenities for slum and non-slum households in most of India are more similar than most would expect. Over 77% are permanent and 70% are owned, and not rented. Close to half are made up of just one room and most are home to one married couple. Over 70% of slum households get their water from a tap but just half get water inside their homes.
More than one in five urban households in AP, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Maharashtra lives in a slum.

In absolute terms, Maharashtra has the highest number of slum blocks of any state – over 21,000 out of a total of just over 1 lakh for the whole country.Over a third of India’s slum population lives in its 46 million-plus cities. Of the metros, Mumbai has the highest proportion of slum-dwelling households (41.3% of its population).