CHANDIGARH is famous and most popularly known as City Beautiful. But today the city shelters two and a half lakh people, 30 per cent of its total population, in slums. And the number of slum-dwellers is growing at the rate of 12 per cent every year.

As per an estimate, there are 45 slums in the city. These include 19 recognised colonies and 26 illegal ones. More than 52 per cent of the people stay in the illegal habitations.

In 1975, the Chandigarh Administration passed orders allotting plots to slum-dwellers. This move encouraged slum-dwellers from other areas to come and settle down in Chandigarh and, thus, make way for a permanent home in the city. A number of slum-dwellers have reportedly even sold their allotted plots and put up a jhuggi somewhere else — to be in queue for a plot yet again!

Chandigarh has a literacy rate of more than 80 per cent, whereas the literacy rate of these dwellers barely reaches 60 per cent. Only 25 per cent of the children residing in slums reach matric. The development schemes launched by the administration are seldom availed by these dwellers. Only 4 per cent of their children get a well-nourished diet.

City residents, expressing concern over these slums, hold the administration responsible for their unchecked growth. Most of the people, however, feel that it is politicians who encourage such settlements to build up their vote banks.

The design and layout of Chandigarh leave little room for the settlements of labourers, but the fact of the matter is that the city too requires skilled and semi-skilled labourers. And so even the poor and needy ought to have a place to survive, in the city.