The have-nots of Delhi

In a city of 1.38 lakh millionaires about 2.42 lakh children don’t go to schools, a survey of 25 lakh people living in Delhi’s slums has found, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 14, 2009, 23:22:02 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

In a city of 1.38 lakh millionaires about 2.42 lakh children don’t go to schools, a survey of 25 lakh people living in Delhi’s slums has found.

This means about 71 per cent of Delhi children go to school as against the national average of 94.5 per cent and 100 per cent in states like Tamil Nadu.

Terming the revelation a “telling figure on the state of children in Delhi”, Amodh Kanth, chairperson of Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), said: “The city has failed to implement alternative modes of education to bring children who are not enrolled under the education mode.”

The survey, conducted by the Samajik Suvidha Sangam Society under the aegis of the Delhi government also found that 25.4 per cent of the slum population, considered the most vulnerable section, was illiterate, the highest for any city in the country. As high as 92.3 per cent of them did not have a bank account.

The educational disparity between the rich and the poor was highlighted by another finding of the survey of 12,000 households in slum clusters. Only 4.7 per cent of them were graduates, 7.9 per cent had passed Class XII, about 20 per cent had completed elementary education and 15.2 per cent primary education.

“About one million children come from poor and vulnerable backgrounds and their basic rights and needs are not fulfilled despite the availability of several government schemes,” Kanth said.

About 83.3 per cent of this group were found to be Hindus, 14.3 per cent Muslims and 1.4 per cent Sikh.

Among the Hindus, Scheduled Castes constituted over 30 per cent, Other Backward Classes 14.1 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes 7.8 per cent.

Despite the Capital attracting over five lakh people every year from other states, over 10 per cent of the respondents were unemployed. Another 9 per cent pulled rickshaws, picked rags and ran small shops. “There are about 35,597 ragpickers in Delhi, the majority of whom are children,” Kanth said.

Surprisingly, about 90,000 government servants also resided in the slums, the survey found.

Only 3 per cent reported suffering from ailments like cancer, tuberculosis and heart disease while 97 per cent did not know if they suffered from any disease.

On the brighter side, the survey conducted by St Stephens Hospital for the society found that 67.4 per cent had their own homes with less than 1 per cent being homeless.

The survey, conducted just before the Delhi assembly polls, also found over 51 per cent of those living in slums had a regular water connection. As many as 96.6 per cent had installed an electric meter, indicating privatisation of power has helped in checking theft.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.