Unemployment, Service Provision and Violence Reduction Policies in Urban Maharashtra

With almost 40 per cent of its urban population living in slums, the state of Maharashtra faces a severe problem of inadequate housing and urban planning. The acute inequalities that characterise current Maharashtra’s urban development leave many people suffering from inadequate housing, poor service provision, lack of access to health and sanitation, overcrowded spaces, and limited employment opportunities. With urbanisation poised to increase dramatically over the next decades in India, it is urgent to remedy the current situation lest the social ills associated with unbalanced urbanisation grow worse. This report analyses the relationship between violence and economic vulnerability among urban populations in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It argues that the interconnection of crime, violence and vulnerability has to be explicitly recognised for both development and security policies to succeed. Efforts to improve the security of vulnerable urban populations must include physical insecurity at the margin by focusing on social, economic or legal insecurity.