The national policy on education of India accords an unqualified priority to universalization of elementary education yet this remains a distant dream. According to one of the estimates of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (photocopy of Newspaper report attached) more than 7 lakhs children do not go to school in Delhi alone. The unofficial figures are 1 to 1.2 million children do not go to school in Delhi. We conducted our own survey in a Delhi slum and found that about 70 percent children were not going to school. In another area namely Gyaspur Colony, Delhi-110013, which is a slum of New Delhi and situated on the Bank of river Yamuna close to 95 percent children were not going to school. The condition of other slums of National Capital Territory of Delhi is no better. During our five years of working in the slums of Delhi we have found that none of the state agencies reach them either for education or health- care. They live and cook in hutments of approximately 7feet by 7 feet. The family size is four to six members per family. There is no drainage system and water logging can be seen everywhere. They are the ideal places for mosquito breeding and hence the cause of several diseases with no doctor to attend to these Patients. Such human miseries are visible everywhere in these slums all over Delhi.
We at RMRC debated at length and came to the conclusion that we cannot reach out to ever one of these people due to our limited resources. Besides it will be wasteful expenditure. The best way to help them and also to solve this problem on permanent basis is to educate them and their children and also provide them with skills through vocational training so that they become competent to solve their own problems and are equipped to take decisions which are beneficial for them.
