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In Indian cities today, it doesn’t take long for an outsider to observe the vast difference between the posh, middle class and the low income neighbourhoods. India’s growing inequality of income is much more evident in urban areas than in rural areas because India’s rich live in the big metro cities and towns and not in villages. Their lifestyle is distinctly different from the lifestyle of the low income and middle income groups.

There is a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few rich who are residing in big cities. There are 97 dollar billionaires and 198,000 dollar millionaires in India. Most have luxury abodes in the megacities apart from having property abroad.  India has had the fastest growth of millionaires in the world. Their houses are like fortresses with their own generators, swimming pools, water, garages and several layers of security and electronic surveillance devices like in a James Bond film. They probably take advantage only of the city’s drainage and sewerage system.

The differences between the lifestyles of people living within the same city is leading to segregation of a kind that even the British did not practice during colonial times. Each city today has gated communities which have guards at the gates and patrolling by private security personnel. Thus vendors and hawkers are kept away from the posh areas.

Various studies show that poverty in urban areas has been decreasing but inequality has been increasing. Migrants from the villages are attracted by high wages in the cities and join the informal sector. Many are employed in the services of the urban rich. Their average earnings have increased over the years and many living in slums have got bank accounts, TV, mobile phones and other assets. Not all living in the slums are poor. But their incomes are nowhere near their employers’ incomes.  Because while daily wages have increased three or four times in the last ten years, the salaried classes’ incomes have risen ten times. They also have low bargaining power and a large supply of unskilled labour is still coming from the villages. One study however points out that migration in big cities has declined mainly because of urban exclusion.

Around 17 million people live in the slums of megacities. Basic amenities liked garbage disposal and sewerage are missing in some of the biggest rehabilitation colonies like Madanpur Khadar in Delhi which also has poor connectivity to the city. It is the lack of rapid human development and lack of adequate non farm jobs which is a push factor for migration and is causing this alarming rural urban divide.

The inequality is being perpetuated by the poor school system in the slums and lack of reliable health facilities. Besides as they are living close to drains railway tracks or highways and are exposed to diseases and accidents.

Many of the city’s poor do not even possess a ration card. Many are permanent migrants because they have sold off their land to developers in the past. The dispossessed slum dwellers and squatters’ dwellings are at a risk of being razed to the ground. Often one reads news about slum dwellers being rendered homeless because of a fire or a bulldozer.

A solution would be to have better connecting roads, efficient transportation and low cost housing in the slums. There is a shortage of such houses of around 2 million units per year. The low cost houses are often taken by the middle class residents who live off the rents paid by the poor. Also education and health services ought to be improved significantly so that slum children do not drop out and become unemployable later.

Stress and insecurity in slums also leads to drugs and alcoholism which takes a toll on children’s education. The Swatch Bharat campaign if sincerely adhered to would have made a big difference to the health of the low income groups. Unfortunately the government’s spending on health is one of the lowest in the world at 1.3 per cent of the GDP. The rich on the other hand can afford to go to super specialty hospitals and get the best healthcare possible. This phenomenon has been on the rise even though there are many news items on the exploitative and extortionist practices of big private hospitals.

More than anything it is the apathy of the urban rich towards fellow human beings who are living in squalor within miles of each other, which is shocking. Inequality exits everywhere — New York, Paris and London but in India the contrast is extra sharp and nothing much is being done to reduce it. In Delhi thousands sleep in bitter cold outside because the city’s shelters are not adequate. A change in the city’s administration brought about little change unfortunately.

Thus India’s poverty is decreasing but inequality is increasing and the market economy caters to people with spending power. New eateries are opening every day in big cities offering a great variety of food but the poor rely on charitable institutions to feed themselves. Many temples, Gurdwaras and mosques are doing what the local government should have done.

India’s income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient has risen only a little (from 0.32 to 0.38 over 10 years) and the government is pleased that it is less than China’s. But the problem is that we are measuring inequality not by income data but by consumption expenditure. If it were possible to measure it by income, the index would have been much higher.

Even when the past governments have tried seriously to address the problem by a number of schemes aimed at the urban poor like the JNNURM, and the NUHM– it has not made much difference to mitigate the rising inequality. This is because the gap between the rich and the poor is too wide and the schemes’ delivery is either poor or inefficient. They may be well intentioned but they need more money and better administration especially in health and housing. It is the infrastructural deficiencies that need to be addressed urgently–lack of housing, mass rapid transportation and availability of safe drinking water, power, sanitation and drainage to make a difference to existing urban exclusion.

Jayshree Sengupta
26 February 2016

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