- ‘”A 1990 survey of Dehli”, reports Susan Chaplin, “showed that the 480,000 families in 1100 slum settlements had access to only 160 toilet seats and mobile toilet vans. The lack of toilet facilities in slum areas has forced slum dwellers to use any open space, such as public parks, and thus has created tensions between them and middle class residents over defecation rights.” Indeed, Arundahati Roy tells of three Dehli slum-dwellers who in 1998 were “shot for shitting in public spaces.”- Davis, Mike (2007) Planet of Slums, London: Verso, p.140
“Most of 470 families living a slum near the capital’s diplomatic enclave for over 25 years were rendered homeless as their dwellings were demolished ahead of the Oct 3-14 Games.
Less than 100 of the affected families have been rehabiliated to flats in outer Delhi and have no water or electricity yet in their new homes.”
“Slums in Delhi seem to be sitting on a tinder box with five persons killed, 50 injured and over 1,250 hutments gutted this month alone.
Fire fighters say this can be checked by taking measures like banning commercial activities in slum clusters, supplying power through underground cables and regulate electric installations in various premises in such places.
They attribute the increasing incidents of fire in slums to materials used in constructing hutments, storage of combustible waste and a web of electric wires passing through slums resulting in short-circuits.”
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Tags: Commonwealth Games, Dehli, irony, slums
