Profile of slums

Slums as described by social scientist are a by-product of modern era. With the beginning of industrialization, cities emerged comprising population of labor from rural part to urban part. In India, the emergence of slums started during the last two decades of this century because of fragmentation of land in rural areas and galloping growth in population have led to unwarranted unemployment, famine, social-class conflicts and caste tension have caused equally as well for the emerging of slum.

1. Social Composition of slums

The tribal who has been displaced by the establishment of huge factories have started living in slums. Some place slums act as a refugee for these displaced tribals and provided them seasonal employment. Once they get exposed to urban way of life they never go back.

The maximum numbers of slums are from schedule caste and schedule tribe. They belong to lower caste of sweepers and scavengers landless agricultural laborers. The slums are migrated from one place to another place due to conflicts, seeks for job, to get facilities, wish to get luxurious life etc.

The slum may not economic poor in their own land. They may have their own land in different place. The slum develop heterogeneous group. They get mixed up. But gradually, they settle down in segregated areas on the basic of their castes. We can say that individuals migrate with assistance from kin, caste, and locality affiliation with reference to residence, contacts for job, and temporary monetary help. The natural disaster like Uttarakhand helps to people to become slum.

2. Ecological process in India

In the size of urban population, India ranks 4^th in the world. Population explosion and heavy migration from rural areas have created the problem of congestion in urban areas.

Today vested interest in government and politics are being used to create communal tension in these slum colonies. Recruitment of several armed forces is made from here. Today, communalizations and criminalization have become part and parcel of electoral politics. Politicians find slums a most fertile ground for the nefarious purpose. This enables them to keep slum dwellers divided and distracted from their struggle for their basic rights and minimum facilities.

3. Socio-economic and Social Status of slum dwellers

We can see slum on the road-side, riverside, near to big-building and colonies. There are large deep and wide drains either subordinating the colonies or in their vicinity. All the year around flies, mosquitoes and insects keep breeding.

As we all know slums are poor but no one ever bothered to provide them with a model plan or guide for economic construction.

With regard of dispensaries, either the medicines, or the doctor is missing and at times both are not available there. Similarly, the training centers remain locked most of the time. They function only when a VIP has to visit. There are more drops-out than admission in schools. Parents cannot buy text books and stationeries for their children.

The economic value of man is slum area gives birth to various ill and sins in the society. Violence for self-preservation, assault, fighting, rape, stealing etc generally emerge in these areas. The people are unskilled, uneducated, unemployed, and seasonal employed people we can see in slums. In addition, over population, importance of son, early child marriage, and inherent poverty is the major problems of slums.