Slums in India : The Mirror of Indian Urban Problems

Abstract

The present paper attempts to highlight the problems of Indian urbanisation arising out of poorly planned or haphazard growth of Indian urban population. Slums are the outcome of the combination of demographic, socio-economic, administrative and political reasons like rural-urban migration due to unemployment or poor infrastructural facilities in rural areas, rapid urbanisation, urban poverty, faulty planning of cities, disasters and so on. The major problem with the slums are its identification due to absence of a proper definition of slums that is universally applicable. The paper also tries to suggest planning measures so that the problem that urban India is facing in the forms of slums could be minimised.