The Maharashtra government is pulling all stops to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Out of the over 300 cases emerging from the state, the highest number have been identified in Mumbai. After the rapid spike of cases in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has identified several ‘containment zones’ across Mumbai and sealed them. These containment zones have been found to have one or more suspected positive cases of Covid-19. It is noteworthy, that most of these containment zones are in low-income neighbourhoods, where there is no space for social distancing. Hence, even one case here is a red flag for the risk of starting off community transmission and infecting the community at large.

This also begs the question that if the disease was brought in to the country by relatively privileged people flying in from abroad, why is it disproportionately affecting the lower-income sections of society? It is clear that the infection was passed on by the foreign returned privileged folk to their staff and other people from low income families they met after returning to the country such as domestic staff such as maids and drivers, ground staff at airports, rickshaw and taxi drivers, etc. The failure of the privileged to self-quarantine is what is causing discomfort to the people they ended up infecting no matter how inadvertent the transmission may have been.

Instead of posh gated communities and exclusive enclaves that are home to the affluent, the neighbourhoods sealed off are predominantly slums, bastis and shanti-towns, where many of these families live cheek-by-jowl and now face an uncertain future with both their health and livelihood at stake. 

What is a containment zone and why is it needed?

A containment zone is the part of the city where an individual has been tested positive for Covid-19. The zone could be a single building, a street or an entire neighbourhood. Containment zones have a large number of people quarantined because of their proximity with Covid-19 patients.

These containment zones are necessary so as to ensure that the Covid-19 virus doesn’t spread beyond the designated area. People in such containment zones are only allowed to step out of the area to buy essentials. In cases where situations are more serious, even that is not allowed and no one from outside is allowed to enter these containment zones too.

Containment zones in Mumbai

As of Friday, the BMC has zeroed down on 212 containment zones in the city. This number went up from 191 on Thursday, 151 on Wednesday and 146 on Tuesday. BMC officials say that the number of such zones is only set to rise as more cases come forth.

Six hot-spots, where instead like earlier solitary cases, a cluster of infections of positive Covid-19 cases has emerged, have been completely sealed by the police. The biggest containment zone is at Worli Koliwada where 11 residents have tested positive so far. This is followed by a chawl in Prabhadevi with 12 cases, Jambhlipada in Kalina and Bimbisar Nagar in Goregaon with three cases each and Lokhandwala in Kandivali and Neelkanth Regent in Ghatkopar with two cases each.

The entry and exit of people here has been completely shut and all essential commodity shops in the area have been shut too. The BMC has said that it will arrange and provide for essentials for the residents of these areas.

Containment zone operations

The BMC has begun a door-to-door screening operation in these containment zones. Roads leading to these zones too are being constantly monitored and only authorized health personnel are being allowed to go through.

Worli Koliwada: The Worli Koliwada containment zone has around 35,000 residents in quarantine. The area witnessed its first death due to coronavirus on Tuesday and the police and administration have now identified clusters, epicenters and buffer zones in the area.

108 residents over the age of 60 with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, etc. have been shifted to Poddar Hospital. Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, one of the officials said that eight small epicenters of the disease have been identified in the area. “We have marked containment zones around these epicenters. They are homes of those who have tested positive. No one can come out or go inside the containment zone. We are sending samples of all those living inside the containment zone for testing. The high-risk citizens were moved so that they don’t get infected.”

Prabhadevi Chawl: After a woman from the chawl who succumbed to the infection last week, seven more of her family members tested positive for the infection. Apart from that, five people from the neighbourhood rooms too tested positive for the virus. The twelve are now undergoing treatment at the Kasturba hospital, which was one of the first designated hospital for Covid-19 patients. According to local Shiv Sena corporator Samadhan Sarvankar, no new cases were detected on Tuesday this week. However, four individuals suspected to have the virus were referred to the Kasturba Hospital too.

Jambhlipada, Kalina: After a 37-year-old man from the Jambhlipada slum tested positive for the infection after returning from Italy, the fire brigade’s Quick Response Vehicles (QRV’s) were sent out to carry out the disinfection of over 800 hutments. All entry and exit points of the area were sealed and no one was being allowed to step out without authorization. Tulip Miranda, the local Congress corporators has said that the BMC will now provide essential supplies to the approximate 32,000 residents of the area.

Bimbisar Nagar, Goregaon: Out of the 31 buildings in the area, almost eight buildings with over 336 flats in them have been encompassed in the containment zone. Imposed restrictions on entry and exit will stay in force for two weeks. Movement is allowed only in two cases – in cases of medical emergency and to access essential services. The building residents have been asked to select a watchman to help buy essential provisions in bulk and leave the same on the ground floor, from where the residents can then collect their packages.

Vanrai police station’s Senior Police Inspector Girendra Bhavsar said that roughly 30 percent of the area is now a containment zone. “Barricades have been erected and notices have been put,” he informed.

Lokhandwala, Kandivali: In this area, everyone exiting or entering the housing complex is being questioned. The 300 m pathway that leads to the society which comprises of five 23-storeyed buildings has been sealed. Here too, restrictions will remain in force for two weeks as per orders of the BMC’s health department said R Kasbe, Senior Police Inspector, Samta Nagar police station.

Member of the Lokhandwala Resident Association, Raj Kashyap, said that the residents from neighbouring buildings have made arrangements for all security guards within the buildings itself. They have been asked not to send the guards out of the area and provisions for their food have also been undertaken by the residents. All the buildings have been disinfected too, he said.

Neelkanth Regent, Ghatkopar: In Neelkanth Regent, an 85-year-old woman passed away due to the infection and her son tested positive for the same later, though he was cured and discharged, the building has been declared a containment zone with the entry and exit gates barricaded. A part of the Ram Narayan Narkar road that leads to the building too has been sealed off. A police officer from Pantnagar police station said “This is a precautionary measure since there was a positive case here. But now that patient has been cured and discharged. However, he is still in home quarantine and so we have sealed the area.”

These five zones are called red zones as even essential services in these zones are shut to strictly ensure there is no citizen movement.

Other areas sealed off

After a 56-year-old man from Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, passed away due to the Covid-19 infection, eight to 10 members of his family have been put in quarantine. The BMC has since then sealed off an entire pocket of 380 flats of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme in the area where the man lived. Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner, G North Ward, said, “We have sealed the building the building where he lived and started providing food and other necessities to the residents. His contact history is being traced.”

Dighavkar also said that the BMC is drawing up a list of senior citizens living in the building, especially those with co-morbidities. He said, “If required we will move these high-risk contacts out of Dharavi and put them in quarantine in a hospital.”

The BMC has formed a ‘corona war room’ in its disaster control unit for case data collection, mapping by area and monitoring on-ground movement, reported The Times of India. Two IAS officers have been deputed to the BMC for managing the crisis. The BMC has also installed CCTVs to check that all instructions are being adhered to.

“For the first time, effective monitoring is being done using the ‘Video Analytics’ system so that action can be taken from time to time. Policemen stationed around will automatically get an SMS and take action if any citizen is found loitering in the containment zone areas,” BMC officials said.

The containment zone map can be viewed here.

Related:

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Distressed over the plight of India’s internal migrants: UN Human Rights chief

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Shabnam Verma, Neeraj Verma, Kanupriya Kothiwal, Shrey Goel helped on the study and are team members and volunteers of Urban Health Resource Centre
 

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Image: Indian Express
 
“We have a dream for 2022. The poorest of poor should have a house of his own. And that house must be equipped with electricity, water and other facilities. There should be hospitals and schools in the neighborhood”. This is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on the occasion of Ambedkar Jaynati. Noble sentiments these, but will this dream come true?

In Mumbai, in the aftermath of the municipal corporation election in February, different authorities have been demolishing more and more slums in the city; most of them remain unreported. Recently, in the city’s Andheri West area, authorities showed up with bulldozers and, without any warning, evicted hundreds of families from their homes. Many children of this community were appearing for exams at the local municipal school at the time.

In Vakola, pavement dwellers, including two city contract workers and their two-day-old infant, found their homes destroyed before the prime minister’s convoy passed through the area.

The city’s slums are homes to sweepers, maids and drivers, but also white collar workers. If you live in a high-rise apartment building or bungalow in Mumbai, chances are you depend on a small army of slum dwellers to do all the jobs you don’t want to do – or don’t have time for.

But we must ask the question: where do families living under the flyover, or in the basti next to apartment buildings go? What alternatives are there for the more than 50% of Mumbaikars who live in informal housing? And this isn’t just a Mumbai specific issue. With the rush to build smart cities, what will happen to those who live in slums in those towns and cities? Where do they fit into the larger scheme of things?

Is ‘Housing for All’ by 2022 a Possibility?
The scheme – ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Housing For All’ – has four provisions. The first provision provides for a house to slum dwellers through slum rehabilitation schemes to be carried out by a private developer. The goal is to re-house slum residents in multi-storey rehabilitation buildings while using the remaining land of the slum to construct residential/commercial buildings for selling flats in the open market. Second: there is an interest rate subsidy for a home loan for weaker sections; for up to 6 lakhs the interest rate will be 6.5%. Third, 35% of the housing in a particular project will be reserved for economically weaker sections (EWS), and each beneficiary will get a Rs 1.5 lakh subsidy. And fourth, the central government offers a subsidy for a beneficiary-led individual housing construction.

Together, these provisions are supposed to rehabilitate people living in slums. This is apparently the plan that is in place to counter-balance evictions and demolitions. A closer look, however, reveals why these provisions are inadequate.

Let us analyse the ‘Housing for All’ Scheme with an example. According to the Minimum Wages Act, the highest salary an unskilled sweeper can make is Rs 8238.25 per month. Someone living on this salary cannot possibly benefit from the scheme.

This is because, under the first provision, only those slum dwellers will get an alternative housing who will qualify the eligibility criteria. The eligibility is decided on the basis of a cut-off-date. Only those people who can show they have been living in their current home (where the rehabilitation scheme is proposed) prior to the cut-off-date, are eligible as the beneficiaries of the scheme. However, often families who have lived in the same slum for years and decades have been victims of frequent demolitions, due to which, even if they keep rebuilding their houses on the exact same plot, a lot of paperwork which is necessary to prove eligibility, goes missing during the chaos of these demolitions. Without these documents – like water bills and electricity books – it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove legitimate residence.

This is a dilemma: to prove residence and thus eligibility, the resident needs a water/electricity bill, but to get a water/electricity bill, he needs to prove residence. This cut-off-date condition will not only render a large number of slum residents of that particular slum where the rehabilitation scheme will be carried out as ‘ineligible’ but it will also dis-house them when new buildings are constructed. Others may move into this new housing.

Under the second provision, the EWS are defined as those households that have an annual income up to Rs 3,00,000 and lower income groups (LIG) are defined as those households that have an annual income between Rs 3,00,001 up to Rs 6,00,000. The guidelines further say that, “The credit linked subsidy will be available only for loan amounts upto Rs 6 lakhs and additional loans beyond Rs 6 lakhs, if any, will be at nonsubsidized rate”. This means that the beneficiary will get a loan at lower interest rate than he or she would get normally. The maximum loan amount is 6 lakhs, though there is virtually  nothing available in the housing markets in the bigger cities. Now even homes in the far flung northern suburbs of Mumbai are out of reach for anyone in the EWS or LIG segment.

Let’s suppose the government increased the loan amount to  Rs 10 lakh, and waived the interest altogether. Even so, the EMI would be Rs 5,500 per month at minimum, for the loan to be repaid in 15 years. Add to that the maintenance costs of Rs 1,500 per month for living in an apartment building. This sum of Rs 7,000 would be impossible to pay for the unskilled sweeper getting paid a maximum possible salary of Rs 8,238.

Finally, the fourth component of the ‘Housing for All’ scheme is designed to help people repair or redevelop dilapidated housing. In order to benefit from this part of the scheme, a person has to own the plot of land on which their house is built. This rules out slum dwellers for the obvious reason that their homes are built on government (or occasionally, private) land.

Every provision of this scheme leaves loopholes that cast doubts over the scheme’s bold title: ‘Housing for All’. The scheme might cater to one section of society that has a certain income level, but it overlooks vast numbers of people in the bigger cities. In Mumbai, for example, over 60% of residents live in informal housing.

India needs a law that recognises housing rights as basic human rights. After her  mission to India last year, Leilani Farah, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing expressed the importance of such a law in her report in the 34th session of the UN Human Right Council on March 1, this year. Such a law should ensure protection of minimum shelter to the neediest person to make sure he or she lives a dignified life.

Absence of such legal provisions will continue to pose the constant threat of eviction of people living in informal settlements. Demolitions are not a sustainable solution. Boldly promising them houses without putting in place the policies to make this happen  will only mean that the Housing for All mission, will never be fulfilled.

(Bilal Khan is a housing rights activist working with the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan (GBGBA) in Mumbai. Ane Gupta is a PhD student researching slum activism in Mumbai.)

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