Dharavi, located in Mumbai, is known to have maintained one of the largest slums in Asia. With a population of a million, the place remained ill-famed for long, due to its association with many underworld dons and parallel economy transactions. Dharavi is in the news today, not because of its representation or misrepresentation in different contexts, but as the hotbed of COVID-19 pandemic in India.
As per the analysis based on the spread of the pandemic across the globe, slum-like locations threaten to make human life devastating with the fast spread of Covid-19. India is not an exception in this regard as the country moves dangerously while large numbers of people have been tested positive from cities like Mumbai, the financial capital of India where Dharavi situates. As of now, the total COVID-19 confirmed cases in India have risen to more than a quarter million with more than 7000 deaths, making the country having the fourth-highest active COVID-19 cases in the world. It becomes a matter of concern when the state of Maharashtra holds the largest share of slum population and COVID-19 positive cases in India. The first case of COVID-19 was reported in this slum on 1 April 2020. Now the total number has climbed to about 2000 along with 70 plus has succumbed to this disease in Dharavi so far, according to the state health department. Contextualizing the alarming situation in the state of Maharashtra, we need to have an overview of slums in India, particularly the situation in Dharavi.
According to the Handbook of Urban Statistics published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MHUA), Government of India in 2019, Slums are:
those residential areas where dwellings are in any respect unfit for human habitation by reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangements and designs of such buildings, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light, sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors which are detrimental to safety, health and morals. A slum is characterized by lack of durable housing, insufficient living area, lack of access to clean water, inadequate sanitation and insecure tenure.
Now India is said to have about one-third of the total slum population in the world. According to a study conducted by Brookings (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/16/are-slums-more-vulnerable-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-evidence-from-mumbai/) amid the pandemic, slums constitute 17 percent of urban households in India. Slums in Maharashtra alone account for about one-fourth of the total slum population in the country. If we add the slum population of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, they together constitute nearly two-third of the country’s total slum population. When it comes to Mumbai alone, they make up 42 per cent of the households in the crowded city. They do not have the availability of clean water, and thousands depend on public toilets which make it easy to spread pandemic like COVID-19.
According to news reports, most of the existing Containment Zones in Maharashtra are in and around Dharavi. One of the reasons behind this phenomenon is related to the lack of basic amenities. It led to people gather in large numbers to access these facilities that ultimately resulted in difficulty in maintaining social distancing. Dharavi is spread over 2.4 square kilometres with nearly one million residents. More importantly, the population density is 354,167 per square kilometre, making it the most complex residential area to handle COVID-19. The area is characterised by double-storey stand-alone tin and concrete shanties. Its inadequate sanitation and limited health care facilities offer the perfect breeding ground for viruses like COVID-19 in its premise.
As the number of COVID-19 deaths and positive cases rapidly increases, it is very urgent to have a clear strategy before it could become a human catastrophe. To control the pandemic in slums like Dharavi, some strategies have to be taken at multilevel with the active and effective participation of civil society organizations, state and central governments and, most importantly, by the residents of Dharavi.
