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Millennium Development Goal targets to halve the proportion of population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 and aims to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers. The large size of slum population has posed several challenges to the policy makers and program planners in the developing countries. Present study attempts to study the characteristics of slum dwellers in all the states/union territories and 35 million plus cities in India. Results reveal that slum dwellers have better sex ratio and work participation rate as compared to the non-slum urban area. Few million plus cities have reported about half of its city population living in slums i.e. Faridabad, Greater Mumbai and Meerut. Present study also attempts to understand the living conditions of slum dwellers in Mumbai. In spite of many slums got notified by the government they are still lacking basic necessities of life. In spite of several government policies there is a need to improve the life of slum dwellers through the community participation.

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Grace Bahalen Mundu is currently a doctoral candidate in Population Studies at International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India. She Obtained Master of Philosophy in Population Studies from IIPS and completed Master of Arts in Geography from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India.

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