ABSTRACT
The Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MHUPA), following the definition adopted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), considers a slum to be a compact settlement with a collection of poorly built tenements mostly of a temporary nature. As cities are growing, slums are growing faster still. Despite this, little is known about the lives of people living in these settlements. Problems of definition, methodology and interpretation collide to create this knowledge gap. The 2011 enumeration indicated that over 5.4 percent of the Indian population lives in slums. As most slums are located in urban areas, this figure is much higher in towns and cities, at 22 percent. Of those living in slums, around one-third live in notified slums, while the rest live in recognized or identified slums. The largest number of slums and slum residents were concentrated in the largest city, Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore.
