Many of the metropolises of this world have slums, also India. Beside the whole skyscrapers and the building locations of the big groups the misery and the poverty are hardly to be overlooked, because in immediate nearness many slums have settled. The shantytowns of the Indian metropolises have a long history of development. The social and hygienic conditions of the  Indian slums in which the people must live because of poverty, the slums of Calcutta are known as the worst in the whole world.

The streets, lanes and the open sewer systems of the slums have strongly got dirty, so illnesses, chronic sufferings as for example asthma and child mortality are spread till this day still very often.

The lacking knowledge of the slum inhabitants about health, medical care, child care and food is as constant.

In the Indian slums streets are to be found in the rarest cases, much more often narrow lanes, dark and narrow passageways are the rule. These lanes and narrow ways are unpaved what has to result that they particularly in the monsoon rainy season floods are and therefore become unusable.

The inhabitants of the slums and just the remaining population call the poverty quarters of the different towns and areas with different names, the kind of the construction which should point to the house type, and the used materials.

On this occasion, you can make a distinction between many different kinds of slums.

 

Katras: these are houses with one very samll romm, which were mostly built up in rows. Many of the Katras are parts of old dwellings of the Muslims, originally the buildings should protect the women against the looks of other men and offer the protection from lootings.

 

Chawls: They call the houses of the slums in Bombay Chawls. There often live more than three families together in one single room, this space is dark even on the day, because they have no windows. The inhabitants must sleep alternately, because it lacks on place.


Coach teas: This are small huts which were assembled from mud pieces. The roofs and side walls are covered with sackcloths, metal filings or wood.


To the townscape belong beside the inhabitants of the slums, particularly in Calcutta so called pavement dwellers (sidewalk inhabitant). Thousands live on the street, complete families whose members were born on the sidewalks. There they grow up, are brought up, there they sleep, eat and exactly there they also die. They never had a home or a roof over the head, never felt accompanying somewhere. During the day they deliver her belongings to the neighbouring, who give eight on them. In the evening are the sidewalks with hundreds of cooking places and sleeping people overlook.