Half of Smart City population lives in slums

Vizag has 741 slums as per 2011 Census

Visakhapatnam: Every hungry and jobless family from north coastal Andhra and elsewhere headed for the city over the last five decades earning the tag `the city of destiny’. The district administration though has been aware of the large-scale influx, never bothered to provide them shelter or decent means of livelihood. The result was 741 slums sprang up housing around 8.21 lakh people as per the 2011 census.

They all break bones to survive and feed their hungry children. The city after merger of Bhimili and Anakapalle towns now has the population of 20 lakh, which means half of the population has been shoved into slums earning a distinction to the city for having the highest number of people living in slums in the entire country.

According to the GVMC records, of the 8.1 lakh population, three lakh are living on the hill slopes always facing a perennial threat of landslips. Around 641 slums came up in the government land, six colonies in Railway lands, two colonies in Port Trust lands, 20 slums in Endowment lands, eight slums on Wakf property, four slums in private-government lands mix and one slum in Defense property.

Of the 741 slums, the GVMC is yet to notify 415 slums depriving them of all the benefits under the 1956 Slums Act. Unfortunately, the urbanites and the government has failed to recognise a glaring fact that these people living in the slums are shouldering the burden of production whether it is in the private or government sector.

“If these slum-dwellers are packed off the production will come to a halt in public sector undertakings like steel plant, HPCL, Port because it is they who form the bone of unorganised sector which man the production through outsourcing method,” said city secretary of CPI (M) Dr B Ganga Rao, who has a PhD in economics from Andhra University.

Talking to this correspondent, Dr Rao said the slum dwellers include 30,000 auto rickshaw drivers, 1.5 lakh construction workers, 20,000 hamalies, 20,000 transport workers, 25,000 street vendors, 8,000 sanitation workers of GVMC and around 20,000 domestic helps.

Rao said these people live in pathetic conditions as the GVMC is not providing any basic facilities even to the notified slums that should been given as per the 1956 Slums Act. The CPM leader also said as eyewash, the government built over 14,000 houses under various schemes to relocate the slum-dwellers under the concept slum-free city, which was promoted during previous Congress regime.