Forced migration causing increase in Guwahati slums

  • | Tuesday | 13th February, 2018

Soumen Ray, an officer from Team Assam of Unicef, pointed out the urgent need for documentation of school drop-outs in flood-affected areas. This might throw up a considerable challenge to the state government which has finalized a roadmap to achieve 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all by 2030. GUWAHATI: The migration of people from the state's disaster-prone areas is being considered to be main reason for the increasing number of slums in the city, with a survey report submitted by the Administrative Staff College of India (Hyderabad) to the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) stating that the number of slums in the city at present is 164. "As people from flood-affected areas and underdeveloped pockets are arriving in Guwahati in search of livelihood, the number of slums in the city is constantly on the rise," a GMC official said.In the absence of affordable housing facilities in the city, slums keep mushrooming on railway and other government lands. "The migration from the chars and other flood-affected areas to the slums in the city is a new problem, leaving the children more vulnerable," said Ray at an Aranyak event here recently.GMC sources told TOI that providing housing to children who have migrated to the city is proving to be a major problem.

GUWAHATI: The migration of people from the state's disaster-prone areas is being considered to be main reason for the increasing number of slums in the city, with a survey report submitted by the Administrative Staff College of India (Hyderabad) to the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) stating that the number of slums in the city at present is 164. The survey shows a steady escalation as senior municipality officials said there were originally eight slums in the city a few decades ago.While this has posed a challenge to urbanization, government agencies are grappling with another complication - the vulnerability of schoolchildren who have moved to the city from remote underdeveloped corners of the state and are now living in these areas.Aranyak, a biodiversity conservation society supported by the state government's centre for sustainable development goals and Unicef, is in the process of developing knowledge products related to sustainable development goals in the context of disaster risk reduction and climate change. Soumen Ray, an officer from Team Assam of Unicef, pointed out the urgent need for documentation of school drop-outs in flood-affected areas. "The migration from the chars and other flood-affected areas to the slums in the city is a new problem, leaving the children more vulnerable," said Ray at an Aranyak event here recently.GMC sources told TOI that providing housing to children who have migrated to the city is proving to be a major problem. "As people from flood-affected areas and underdeveloped pockets are arriving in Guwahati in search of livelihood, the number of slums in the city is constantly on the rise," a GMC official said.In the absence of affordable housing facilities in the city, slums keep mushrooming on railway and other government lands. This might throw up a considerable challenge to the state government which has finalized a roadmap to achieve 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all by 2030.

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