Housing the seasonal migrants, a challenge for Urban Sustainability: The Case of India.

Abstract

         Cities have served as the cradle of civilization, engine for growth, and fuel for the sustenance of mankind since their inception. With time, they have evolved to be inherently complex urban systems and have attracted various perils to their very existence due to unprecedented growth and expansion, the excessive harnessing of natural resources, economic, social, and cultural fragmentation of society, climate change, etc. Under these conditions, principles, and ideals of sustainable urbanism have emerged as a ray of hope, as there seems to be the key to humanity’s future survival. Sustainable urbanism entails the creation of an urban or city environment that functions to foster the long-term viability of social, financial, and environmental systems coupled with being responsible for citizens' mental health and well-being. Among many others, inclusion and ensuring the equal right to the city for all, including those on the margins, is one of the most important pillars on which urban sustainability stands. When looked at from this perspective, seasonal migrants are one of the most unequal citizens in cities worldwide, including India. Their extreme exclusion from urban processes is evident from their wide-scale invisibility in the policy and planning discourses of most urban entities. In addition to the lack of basic facilities like clean water, sanitation, food security, etc. the lack of affordable and adequate housing for seasonal migrants is often the single most dominant obstacle in the path of their equal citizenship which also creates serious roadblocks in the path to the attainment of sustainable development goals for the cities they reside in temporarily. Unless ‘Housing for all is made a reality, a sustainable urban future will remain a long-distant dream. In India, The concept of affordable rental housing has been gaining considerable importance in e the last decade both in terms of policy and implementation, but their unsuitability to fit in with the seasonal migrants due to their peculiar contextual reality is also becoming increasingly evident. The achievement of sustainability goals of cities and countries is intricately related to their success in solving the perennial problem of housing this segment of the vulnerable city -dwellers and cities must give urgent attention to addressing this concern for ensuring a sustainable urban future.