Abstract
India’s urbanisation in recent decades has ushered in a proliferation of slums and the outcome of this has been a large number of poor being exposed to appalling living environment. The present study seeks to understand the inequalities in access to water and sanitation between the slum and non-slum households. The analysis has been carried out for some selected states of India. The main objective of the study is to delineate the inter-state differences between slum and non-slum households with respect to access to water and sanitation. Database for the study pertains to Census of India, 2011 and the analysis has been done for only statutory towns to maintain parity between slum and non-slum households. The major findings of the study reveal that the development level of the states has a bearing on the access to water and sanitation with respect to the refined indicators exemplifying municipal efficiency such as access to tap water within premises and not so much on the broader indicators like access to safe drinking water. The slums and the non-slums were found to be in comparable positions with respect to the broad indicators such as overall access to safe drinking water, but the disparity was found to increase when distance between the household and water point was taken as an indicator. In the case of access to latrines, level of development has a bearing on both the broad and the refined indicators. Rajasthan and Punjab emerged as two states with near parity between non-slum and slum households with respect to household access to treated tap water within premises and flush latrine connected to piped sewer network, respectively.
Published Version
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