1The author is engaged in teaching Geography in the under graduate level at Kandra Radha Kanta Kundu Mahavidyalaya, Kandra, Purba Bardhaman, West Bengal, Email: amisumit572@gmail.com
*The author is gratefully acknowledges the help and co-operation offered by the target population i.e. the pavement dwellers of Kolkata city during the phase of empirical survey and primary data collection.
Online Published on 04 August, 2022.
Homelessness is a burning issue of the whole world as in almost every country there is a sizeable number of homeless people. They are undernourished, prone to different types of diseases, mostly illiterate or little literate and socially and economically marginalised with little to no access of the basic living facilities. This issue is more critical in the populous nations of the third world. This paper attempts to investigate the issues and challenges related to the pavement dwellers of Kolkata, one of the most populous cities in India. This study selected 210 pavement dwelling groups/so called households, consisting of 534 individuals for field observation as the primary data, based on a structured questionnaire and used secondary data of the various census reports and reports published by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). This study reveals about the trend of immigration and the demographic, economic, educational, health and hygienic status of these targeted community. It also reveals that the duration of the dwelling on the pavements has a keen relationship with the occupation type of these people. With the assessment of the overall conditions, there are a number of approaches, given here, could be taken to improve the lives of the homeless people.
Pavement dwellers, Socio-economic condition, Push-pull factors, Homelessness
