Residents of Pahari Tola in ward 31 on Ratu Road in Ranchi have no access to basic facilities like water and electricity, while most of the children in this urban slum do not go to school as they work for a livelihood.
These are some of the preliminary findings of a survey conducted by a group of students of S S Memorial College, a constituent unit of Ranchi University.
However, a detailed report of the survey will be submitted to Ranchi deputy commissioner Manoj Kumar and municipal commissioner Prashant Kumar next week to draw their attention to the appalling conditions of the slum dwellers.
"There is a single hand pump that too 5km away from Pahari Tola, which is not sufficient to quench the thirst of over 1,000 residents of the slum. Besides, there is zero sanitation. Slum dwellers defecate in the open as there are no toilets, garbage is dumped at different points in the locality and the stink from the dump is unbearable. Many do not even have ration cards even though they had applied a year ago," said Sweta Kumari, second year Bcom student, who was part of the weeklong survey that ended on Tuesday. Ranchi deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijavargiya was the chief guest on the concluding day.
Forty-two students of different streams from first year to final year randomly selected 172 households for the survey. These students, also National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers, spent two hours in the slum every day to carry out the survey under the guidance of college teachers and NSS programme officer Renu Kumari.
"There are 205 girls and 23 boys in the slum and one government middle school with a capacity of 100 children. We found only 10 children attending the school," said Anish Raj Choudhary, a second year student.
According to programme officer Renu, in each house there are around four to five family members. "While the men work as rickshaw pullers or daily wage labourers, women work as domestic helps. They do not send their children to schools as many of them accompany their parents to work. We also found 15 physically challenged children," she added.
A second year BCA student Namrata Raj said that civic authorities had utterly failed to ensure basic liveable conditions for the slum dwellers.
"Residents are compelled to stay in unhygienic conditions. They claimed even ward councillor Asha Devi did not show any interest to keep her ward clean," she said.
Talking about the survey, principal S.K. Verma said the main purpose was to make the students aware about the social and economic conditions of poor people residing in the slums.
Besides conducting the survey, the students also taught yoga, dance and painting to around 70 deaf, mute and mentally challenged children staying at Srijan School in Pahari Tola.