As the title aptly signifies, the author talks about the uncountable or say 'uncounted' people in the slums of India. JNNURM(Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) and RAY(Rajiv Awas Yojana) have been given this large resoponsibility, together with large sums of money to bring some ease in access to basic needs for these slum-dwellers. But different studies and research show that these schemes have been undoubtedly inefficient, esp. in Chennai, a city known for good. The main reason highlighted has been the lack of recognition of all slums by the government, a pre-requisite, stated by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Act of 1971, for any aid under the schemes. Initially 1202 slums were recognised in Chennai and later 17 more were added, but since 1985 not a single new slum has been added in the list, though in actual the slum-dwellers are adding up indefinitely.
For those slums fortunate enough to be recognised by the government, the Board has been working on constructing large-scale settlements in the outskirts of cities, instead of improving these people's access to basic amenities. The biggest setback this development sees is that it will cost around $1 billion to build these resettlement housing for all, together with the fact that it will take atleast 40 years to build those large numbers.
Thereby, a far better and more-viable strategy suggested by the author is to wake 'Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Act' to its duties, so that they work for the needs of these people and utilise the funds given to them in a 'more constructive ways' rather than in 'constructing more housings'.
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