Source: Bhutan Observer
14 May 2010
Forty-year-old Karma falls into a queue with a jerry can of water. She is waiting for her turn to use a few out door toilets shared by at least 80 households. It is 7 in the morning. The growing slum of Kala Bazaar in Thimphu has woken up.
Karma has followed this morning routine for the last one decade. When the wait to relieve themselves becomes too long, the residents take to the nearby bush.
Karma is one of hundreds of slum dwellers in Kala Ba zaar. The slum area is sepa rated into two communities by the road. The upper com munity has some 30 house holds made up of Thimphu City Corporation workers. The lower community has some 50 households made up of PWD workers.
All slum dwellers are gov ernment workers with the lowest income. They com prise construction labourers, drivers, gardeners, plumbers, sanitation workers, and elec tricians, among others. All of them have landed up in the slum in search of free hous ing.
The slum is made up of rows of small, identical huts built with smoke-blackened bamboo mats, tarpaulins and flattened tar drums.
The area has no adequate access to safe water, sanitation and other urban amenities. It is not surprising because the settlement has mushroomed over the years unplanned.
The majority of families live in a single room adjoining a small kitchen. Given the eas ily combustible materials the huts are built with, there is a real danger of a fire hazard. The whole slum dwellers have only three water taps. Water comes from a source above the settlement where it is collected in a huge drum. The outlet from the drum of ten gets blocked by leaves, sediments and other solid particles. Only early birds get washing and cleaning done. Others have to wait for their turn.
The area does not get regu lar routine garbage disposal service. Waste is everywhere. While the residents claim that garbage is disposed of regularly in the City’s garbage trucks, dogs and chickens are everywhere scavenging on piles of garbage.
A few makeshift toilets are built at odd places. Children often defecate by the road side, and dogs get a hearty meal. The residents say that they come together and do a mass cleaning on weekends.
The lack of basic facilities has been reported to the mu nicipal authorities and the roads department. But no response has come.
Slums are also taking shape in Hejo, Jungzhina, Dech enchholing, Motithang, and at the vegetable market. All of them share similar charac teristics.
The residents of all these settlements on the govern ment land do not pay house rent, but they have to pay electricity bill. The settlement in Dechenchholing, however, does not have electricity con nection.
Conventionally, poverty is seen as a lack of income for meeting basic food needs. However, in urban areas, it has been re-defined as a lack of access to basic services, housing, livelihood and voice or empowerment.
According to the 10th five-year plan document, 23 per cent of the total population in the country falls below the national poverty line.
The approach to the 10th plan recognizes that ‘despite strong pro-poor development policies and interventions, poverty continues to be a seri ous concern’.
Despite many efforts, the urban poor are not likely to see an end to their struggles soon. The local area plans under the Thimphu structure plan do not have a provision for housing for the lowest in come families.
In 2004, Thimphu’s squat ter settlements and slums have almost disappeared af ter the government’s drive to evict slum dwellers. Barely five years later, they are here again, growing.
Urban planners say that slums are a result of lack of urban policies covering land ownership, infrastructure provision and maintenance. For the poor, it is lack of choice.
Chief Urban Planner of Thimphu City Corporation, Geley Norbu, said that force ful eviction of the residents of slums is not the solution. The choice is to embrace them be cause they have nowhere to go.
According to him, there are no policy guidelines in place to make the livelihood of slum dwellers better.
Meanwhile, due to the lack of coherent and effective ur ban policy for the poor, the future of unplanned settlements, especially slums, look bleak.
Going by the urban popu lation forecast by 2020 based on the urbanization trends re ported in the Bhutan National Urbanization Strategy, Thim phu is likely to grow rapidly in the next few years.
Clearly, along with the rise in the city population, the population of the poor and the vulnerable will go up. Going by the constant rate of growth of the poor, the num ber of poor households in the city by 2020 may range from 800 to 2,900 households. But the number could be higher.
If the living condition in the slums does not improve, as observed in other coun tries, the slums could become a breeding ground for social problems such as crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, high inci dence of mental illness, and suicide.
The Secretary of the works and human settlement minis try, Nima Wangdi, however, said that there are no slums in Thimphu. Slums on govern ment land had been removed in the past. “If there are any illegal squatter settlements on government land, they will have to be removed by the City,” he said, adding that even huts between the build ings should be removed. City building inspectors are re sponsible for that.
The slum dwellers, in the meanwhile, can look forward to the coming financial year with hope for proper housing, safe drinking water, proper drainage and sanitation. The city corporation’s proposal of Nu 3 million for improving the livelihood of slum dwell ers has been approved.
By Sonam Pelden
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