By Manoj Rai, Director PRIA

Here are some thought provoking findings that shall force you to ponder on how just our society is in terms of providing to the poor:

• Do you know that the contribution of urban informal settlement dwellers is about 7.53% of the urban GDP?
• And this contribution is comparatively large in comparison to our economic sectors!
• Investing in enhancing the capacity and demands of the urban poor will give the richest dividend. One point increase in demands of the urban poor can therefore raise the city’s GDP by 1 point. There is obviously not such a relation between any other economic sectors.

Therefore the citizens often seen as ‘burden’ to the city, illegal entities residing in urban poor informal settlements and who are subjected to discrimination and inequality, might just be far greater a contributor to the country’s GDP than the privileged lot. PRIA and INDICUS…