‘It may take a generation to make Ahmedabad slum-free’

This growth is divided among housing production at existing slums (which makes up for about half the housing production),a mix of formal and illegal colonies (that makes up about a third) and the JNNURM (which makes up about one fifth),says the paper,whose authors include CEPT University’s president Bimal Patel and Bijal Bhatt of SEWA’s Mahila Housing Trust.

“This illustrates that total private or public production of formal housing is quite small. Even if all new formal housing went to poor households — clearly an overestimate — it would still take a generation or more to rehouse the 422,000 households in slums,” the authors note.

The authors also calculated that median household incomes have increased 2.7 times from 2001 and that it is “nonetheless striking that formal housing is still not affordable for a large part of the population”.

It adds that the areas occupied by slums have “barely increased by 2%” over 10 years while the slum population has increased by 18%,implying a “densification of existing slums”.

“Thus contrary to some popular perceptions,slums and challis do not waste large tracts of valuable urban land,” it says,calling for re-adoption of the Slum Networking Project of the mid-1990s when existing houses in slums were developed with government help in partnership with the residents.

The five other authors are Chirayu Bhatt from CEPT University,Patricia Clarke Annez,Alain Bertaud,Marie-Agnes Bertaud and Vidyadhar Phatak (consultants to the World Bank).