Vishakhapatanam: The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) officials ignored two lakh people in the comprehensive survey it conducted recently. The officials did not survey the slums which came up after 2011, alleged city secretary of CPI(M) and corporator of 78th division Dr B. Ganga Rao.
Ganga Rao said the GVMC in their survey conducted on July 11 and July 12 announced that 793 slums existed in Visakhapatnam city in which 1,59,831 families have been living. These families comprise a population of 6,62,596.
He said barring Bhimili and Anakapalle municipalities, a population of 7,62,104 lived in 741 slums as per 2011 census, which was 44.1 per cent of population living in slums.
As per survey, around 25,349 people lived in slums in Bhimili Municipality and 24,606 in Anakapalle Municipality. In all 8, 12,059 people lived in GVMC, Anakapalli and Bhimili slums as per 2011 census. However, the GVMC officials maintained that a population of 6,62,596 lived in793 slums as per their survey.
The corporator said as per the 2011 census, the population in GVMC grew by 10.91 percent from2001 t0 2011 and it might have grown more between 2011 and 2021 as many slums have come up due to large scale migration of labour class from the rural areas. As per the January 2021 report, 17,26,158 voters exist in 98 GVMC divisions. The total population could be around 26 lakh. Hence the survey report puts the slum population at 25.48 per cent, Ganga Rao said.
The 2011 census also stated that GVMC has 426 notified and 367 un-notified slums in the city.
“The GVMC officials have to explain how the slum population percentage came down despite an increase in the immigration,’’ Ganga Rao asked.
Activists of various mass organisations alleged that these incomplete surveys would not help in the slum development programme.
