KARUMBALAI SLUM PROJECT

Slum visit on karumbalai

Under the guidance of

Prof. Nishanth

Department of social work

Madurai institute of social sciences

(A multifaculty college & research centre affiliated to Madurai Kamaraj University)

Madurai -625 002

M.Eswari

N.Jenisha

M.Nithya

R.Meena

S. Arul prakash

S.Karthick

K . Maruthu Pandian

P.Rama Krishnan

A .Amutha Rani

S.Vikki

What is a slum…?

Urbanization poses several socio-economic and environmental problems for cities in India and one among them is the rise of slums. A slum represents a habitat unit with defective physical, social, and economic living conditions

A heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard Housing and Squalor. On areas of poor housing often characterized by Muti-occupance overcrowding.

Madurai Total Slums : 208

Slum Relocation

• MYTH: Relocating slum residents to housing projects on the outskirts of the city solves the slum “problem.”

• REALITY: Resettling slum residents far from their original homes and job opportunities is not usually viable. The economic and social disruption costs are too high.

What are slums?

“Habitations located on disputed as well as unused government, municipal and private land and characterized by a serious lack of basic amenities and sanitation with dense and overcrowded housing conditions.

A Slum is taken to mean ‘hutting areas with squalid surroundings where:

l Huts are erected in a haphazard manner without proper access.

l Minimum basic amenities are lacking

l Protected water supply and drainage arrangements do not exist.

SLUMS – Its Roots …

§ Poverty

§ Prospects in rural areas

§ Bigger opportunities in cities

§ Preference on labor market than agriculture

§ Unemployment

§ Improper Government Policies

§ Ignorance by Local Bodies

Reasons of slums:

ü Change in agricultural scenario

ü No prospects in rural areas

ü Bigger opportunities in cities

ü Preference on labor market than agriculture

Results of Slums

Ø Slums = Poverty

Ø Poor Living conditions

Ø No Education

Ø Very poor hygiene conditions

Ø Poor health care

A fact reveals that:

l Slum Population all over

India is 40,297,341 (40 million).

l 4% of total Indian population lives in slums

l Almost quarter of Indian metro cities live in slums.

Sadly 5 million of these populations are young children (0-6 age group).

Occupation in slums

l Self-employed in primary sector activities:	0.96
l Non-government salaried employment :	0.15
l Business	4.46
l Wage labor and other than own account workers	0.42
l Self-employed professional and worker	5.71
l Non-earners	3.74
l Union government employment	7.19
l State government employment	4.36

Alarming growth of Slums in India

Initiatives:

l Different Governments have different ways to handle the problem of growing slums.

l Various NGOs are also taking initiatives to help govt in dealing with this issue.

Agencies like Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Mission (JNNURM) and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) plan the Rehabilitation of the slums in metros.

Karumbalai- Introduction

Karumbalai is a famous developing slum in Madurai situated near Anna Bus stand. With a wide no of Community people living in this locality, this area comprises of nearly 2000 poor houses. Spread in all four directions it is named by the name “S.M.Colony” from the year 1968. It is a small unity based slum setting an example for other people throughout the State.

The Scenetic view of Karumbalai

History

In the past 50 years before it was a big pool .Thirumalai Nayak used this place to produce sugar for his construct his palace .So this place was called as Karumbalai .After construct that palace our local government gave this place to wakf board (minority Muslim organization )that time some of the rural migrated people occupied this place for their residents .After this slum clearance board gave this place to the migrated people .Mostly the people migrated from kallupatti,virudhunagar ,usilampatti,Andhra Pradesh ,tirunelveli,kovilpatti etc…

Total population in Karumbalai

Caste	Male	Female
Sc	1724	1712
MBC	165	157
BC	1214	1183
0C	5	7
TOTAL	3108	3052

SHG (Self Help Groups)

There are three self help groups namely;

ü Tamil Annai Gents Group

ü Roja Ladies group

ü Kalanjiyam Groups

Occupation of people in Karumbalai

• Most Males at this region work as masons,carpenters,tailors and run small petty shops

• Generally men work as coolie on temporary basis.

• Most females work as sweepers, house maids/servants in various areas in and around the slum

SEED- The NGO Sheltering the needs of the poor children

Seed believes in bringing out the potential of each child by individual care and attention. So many children from among the urban poor drop out because of lack of support at home and in school. Seed provides the critical support necessary for the children to realize their potential and succeed - compete on par with children from more advantaged classes.

Health status…

• No visible health hazard or malnutrition.

• But due to their low income and living conditions there are chances of unbalanced diet, which may lead to malnutrition and associated diseases.

Sanitation…

• No separate toilet facility.

• Corporation has constructed a common toilet.

• But it is not used properly.

• People themselves have constructed a toilet for them.

Water Facilities…

• Only non drinkable water is available

• Access to purified water is less.

Major caste groups in Karumpalai

There are no of caste groups are here .the majority caste are

· Dalits

· Devar

· Nadar

· Vellalars .

Major conflict between the castes

Actually Devar community is the dominant community in this area so when the festival and celebrating time they use to fight with other caste people .And the Dalit peoples needs for their basic rights so they use to argue with other dominant castes so it made a conflict at that time .then each and every community has their own temples .when the festival time they use to fight .even murder also happened once in a year .so police always protect and supervise this area .this area comes under E2 anna nagar police station .there are number of cases as for this conflicts .

Religious profile

There are three major religion are following here .the majority religious people are hindus .you can see lots of hindu temples in Karumbalai. The semi majority religious people are muslims .there is one sarasans mosque and jamath also here .they have build Arabic teaching school here .the emerging religion here is Christianity .they are spreading their religion through the Sunday service ,summer camps and weekly twice religious meeting .

Political profile

Here there are many political parties are there .The majority parties are DMK, ADMK, VCK .Now the counselor of Karumbalai belongs to DMK party.Ward member now is Mr.V.Karuppiah .

Personalities we meet while visit

Mr.V.Karuppiah – ward counselor

Mrs .palaniammal – Head mistress of karumaplai primary school

Mrs.Indira Gandhi –Head of the self help group

Mr.Thamari selvan –co-ordinator of seed ngo

Mrs. Indira – sub-inspector of police

Major disadvantages in a Slum

o In addition to their primarily informal-sector

incomes, the residents of these settlements suffer from multiple disadvantages:

o public services are inadequate,

o access to health care, education and socio-political decision-making processes is limited

o and the protection of public security is seldom guaranteed by public authorities.

Conclusion

For a long time, the neglect, eviction or forced resettlement of informal settlers was the only response of developing countries to the continuing urbanization process.

There is now an international consensus that comprehensive improvement of the living conditions in informal settlements (slum upgrading) is necessary in order to create conditions for long-term poverty reduction and to gradually raise the quality of life in poor neighborhoods.

“We shall not finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria or any of the other infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking water, sanitation and basic health care.”

Kofi Annan,

Former United Nations Secretary-General

Caste groups