Growth of slums and environmental hazards in Kerala

[LoraBesta]

In fact, growth of slums and slum dwellers has given rise to a number of serious problems. Poverty is one of the patent forces that maintains the vicious circle and makes it so difficult for the people to break out. Most of the people living below the poverty line are daily wage earning laborers. All the earnings are spent on food, alcohol consumption, gambling and other medical expenses which has resulted in their low economic and social status. Thus, a Home in Kerala adjacent to the notorious slums is not considered safe by the elites in all the districts.

Slums are generally educationally backward areas, the result is that more and more number of illiterates and ignorant people are being added to the society every year. They continue to remain in the same status for many generations and remain as it is. Crime is one of the important features of a slum. It is a major cause for the deterioration of the cultural environment of the city. With the increase in population crime rates are also increasing considerably.

Murders, kidnapping, dacoity, robbery, house breaking, cheating and thefts are the common types of crimes found in the slums. Lack of latrines and proper drains, the lack of a proper garbage disposal system has lead to environmental pollution, which has reached abnormal levels. Literally speaking, there is no proper sewage facility for lakhs of people living in the slums. The area surrounding the slums is full of human excreta which serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, flies and bad odor. Most slums are dominated by one room houses. They are the source for the health hazards plaguing the urban areas and have resulted in the outbreak of both acute and chronic diseases. Firewood is the most important energy source for slum dwellers. About 80 percent of the slum dwellers use firewood for cooking purpose, along with kerosene. This has led to the cutting down of various rare tree species in the prominent towns and cities of state.

Slums have existed either on the government owned land or on the ruined buildings. Usually, the government owned lands have been under the unauthorized occupation of the slum dwellers. Once they occupy it, no amount of pressure can drive them away. Thus, no vacant space exists, even if it is a beauty spot, that is safe from the invasion of the shelterless people.

 

[brewerboy]

In fact, growth of slums and slum dwellers has given rise to a number of serious problems. Poverty is one of the patent forces that maintains the vicious circle and makes it so difficult for the people to break out. Most of the people living below the poverty line are daily wage earning laborers. All the earnings are spent on food, alcohol consumption, gambling and other medical expenses which has resulted in their low economic and social status. Thus, a Home in Kerala adjacent to the notorious slums is not considered safe by the elites in all the districts.

Slums are generally educationally backward areas, the result is that more and more number of illiterates and ignorant people are being added to the society every year. They continue to remain in the same status for many generations and remain as it is. Crime is one of the important features of a slum. It is a major cause for the deterioration of the cultural environment of the city. With the increase in population crime rates are also increasing considerably.

Murders, kidnapping, dacoity, robbery, house breaking, cheating and thefts are the common types of crimes found in the slums. Lack of latrines and proper drains, the lack of a proper garbage disposal system has lead to environmental pollution, which has reached abnormal levels. Literally speaking, there is no proper sewage facility for lakhs of people living in the slums. The area surrounding the slums is full of human excreta which serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, flies and bad odor. Most slums are dominated by one room houses. They are the source for the health hazards plaguing the urban areas and have resulted in the outbreak of both acute and chronic diseases. Firewood is the most important energy source for slum dwellers. About 80 percent of the slum dwellers use firewood for cooking purpose, along with kerosene. This has led to the cutting down of various rare tree species in the prominent towns and cities of state.

Slums have existed either on the government owned land or on the ruined buildings. Usually, the government owned lands have been under the unauthorized occupation of the slum dwellers. Once they occupy it, no amount of pressure can drive them away. Thus, no vacant space exists, even if it is a beauty spot, that is safe from the invasion of the shelterless people.

1. Where the fuck is Kerala? Never heard of it.

2. Though I'm sure you're making a person by person basis, which MAY have led to enough cases to lead to a generalization on day laborers. But as a person who had a fall from grace years ago and was a day laborer for 6 months, I'm a little insulted. Not EVERY day laborer spends their money on alcohol consumption. I didnt, I worked my way back. Ever done the day laborer bit? Up at 3:30 in the morning to make it to the office in order to ensure work for the day, and home by 5 (earliest) in the evening? I doubt you have.

3.Murders, kidnapping, dacoity, robbery, house breaking, cheating and thefts are the common types of crimes found in the slums. Lived in that neighborhood. Done that. Learn to fight, or carry a firearm.

4. Education for the children of these poor. Be years before it pays off, but still. In the meantime, sucky as it is, the parents need to tighten their belts and save some money to get out of such shitty neighorhoods in order to give the best possible chance to what amounts to be their greatest investment: Their CHILDREN.


Its a sucky situation for sure. Again, been there, done that...admittingly, to a lesser degree. But its possible to get out of the poverty cycle, with a lot of hard work and determination.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

What the fuck are you talking about? What is the point of your post? Where is your evidence? Can you at least post a link?

@brewerboy: Kerala is a State of India, but a very special one for the simple reason that despite a horribly low per capita GDP and economic indicators in general, Kerala's development model has achieved relatively spectacular levels of social development, particularly in health, education, infrastructure and political consciousness. It's gotten pretty big attention in development circles internationally because of this, though it's of course filled with a string of pretty horrifying problems as in the rest of the third world. But hey, at least they make the most of what they've got. ishdPSDOAi

Here is a good overview for anyone who is interested:

Kerala (pronounced ker'uh luh) , a state of 29 million people in southern India, is poor--even for India--with a per capita income estimated by various surveys to be between $298 and $350 a year, about one-seventieth the American average. When the American anthropologist Richard Franke surveyed the typical Keralite village of Nadur in the late 1980s, he found that nearly half the 170 families had only cooking utensils, a wooden bench, and a few stools in their homes. No beds--that was the sum of their possessions. Thirty-six percent also had some chairs and cots, and 19 percent owned a table. In five households he discovered cushioned seats. But here is the odd part.

* The life expectancy for a North American male, with all his chairs and cushions, is 72 years, while the life expectancy for a Keralite male is 70.

* After the latest in a long series of literacy campaigns, the United Nations in 1991 certified Kerala as 100 percent literate. Your chances of having an informed conversation are at least as high in Kerala as in Kansas.

* Kerala's birth rate hovers near 18 per thousand, compared with 16 per thousand in the United States--and is falling faster.

Demographically, in other words, Kerala mirrors the United States on about one-seventieth the cash. It has problems, of course: There is chronic unemployment, a stagnant economy that may have trouble coping with world markets, and a budget deficit that is often described as out of control. But these are the kinds of problems you find in France. Kerala utterly lacks the squalid drama of the Third World--the beggars reaching through the car window, the children with distended bellies, the baby girls left to die.

In countries of comparable income, including other states of India, life expectancy is 58 years, and only half the people (and perhaps a third of the women) can read and write; the birth rate hovers around 40 per thousand. Development experts use an index they call PQLI, for "physical quality of life index," a composite that runs on a scale from zero to a hundred and combines most of the basic indicators of a decent human life.

In 1981, Kerala's score of 82 far exceeded all of Africa's, and in Asia only the incomparably richer South Korea (85), Taiwan (87), and Japan (98) ranked higher. And Kerala kept improving. By 1989, its score had risen to 88, compared with a total of 60 for the rest of India. It has managed all this even though it's among the most densely crowded places on earth--the population of California squeezed into a state the size of Switzerland. Not even the diversity of its population--60 percent Hindu, 20 percent Muslim, 20 percent Christian, a recipe for chronic low-grade warfare in the rest of India--has stood in its way.

Kerala: A Case Study

^ this is from Ashanet.org ["Asha for Education is a secular organization dedicated to change in India by focusing on basic education in the belief that education is a critical requisite for socio-economic change."]

 

[editec]

Poverty begats poverty in much the same way that money begats more money.

there's a vicious cyle and a virtuous cycle.

Poverty breeds a sense of hopelessness hence the reliance on drugs and alcohol.

Ironically the criminals in poor areas actually are the people with the greatest sense of control over their lives.

They are the people who have not yet given up all hope of getting out of the poverty cycles.

Most of them are wrong, of course, but one can understand why (even if one has no sympathy for) so many young people turn to crime under those circumstances.