'Houses vacant, yet city slums growing'

PUNE: Affordable housing remains a distant dream for many in the city even though a sizeable 18% vacancy exists in the housing sector. This vacancy, which is far higher than the state average of 12%, is despite the fact that more than 40% of the city’s population lives in the slums.
That the number of slum-dwellers in the city has only increased over the years is a reflection of housing options being way out of their reach.This, despite many slum households having relatively stable incomes, reveals the report of a survey conducted by non-governmental organization Mashal.
The NGO conducted the survey to enable the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) prepare a sound development plan for the old city limits, which is currently in the process of formulation after 1987.
The report points out that slumdwellers constituted less than 20% of the city’s population barely 15 years back. “Another 10-15% of the city’s population lives in wadas, gaothan areas, dilapidated buildings or extremely cramped regular housing. Thus, the inaccessibility to affordable housing affects almost half the city’s population and is likely to get worse as Pune continues to grow.
In other words, the affordable housing deficit is in the range of 2.5 to 3 lakh units already and is likely to double over the next 15 years. The supply required is of the order of 33,000 houses per year,”the report states. The average household size observed is 4.74 persons, which is bigger than the Census 2001 household size of 4.57, while the average household size in the slums is 5.4, the report says.
Evidently, housing schemes created over the years for the “economically weaker sections” and “low income groups” have proved to be grossly inadequate, the report observes.
A senior civic official told TOI that the report would help the PMC frame policies to provide affordable housing in the city. “There are three reports that we have sought to prepare. One is the demographic projection report, which has been submitted to us by the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, the socio-economic survey by the Karve Institute of Social Sciences and the housing survey by Mashal,” the official said.