Strategies for Transformation

A viable solution to transform the slums would have to take a holistic view dealing with India’s larger macro challenges. Such a solution should include the following strategies:

♤ Rural Re-Visioning and Investment: There is need to create other cities as counter- magnets so that the migration to major cities like Mumbai can be arrested.

Infrastructure, employment opportunities and the overall quality of life in India’s

small towns and rural areas should be improved.

♤ Industrial Revolution and Continued Development: The solution to slums is not to reverse industrialisation or to try and contain urbanisation, but indeed to press forward with it more aggressively so that businesses can afford to provide jobs to slum-dwellers and pay them a proper wage.

♤ Slum Architecture: Building high-quality, low-cost, multi-storied, diverse formats in the current slum areas such that these become integrated with the rest of the city.

♤ Sustainable Continuous Dynamic Infrastructure Provisioning: The government needs to create a framework for gradual and continuous upgrading of slum infrastructure.