Now 36% urban population in AP lives in slums

About 36 per cent of urban population in Andhra Pradesh lives in slums. One in three people in Hyderabad is a slum dweller, reveals the Census 2011 data. The data speaks that 264 per cent increase in slum population in and around Hyderabad. The city municipality area now has 5.07 lakh slum households with 22.7 lakh dwellers.

The high slum concentration in and around the AP capital is being attributed to increasing rural to urban migration and lack of effective urban planning, which has seen rise of slums alongside swanky malls and high rises in the past decade. Surprisingly, Secunderabad cantonment area too witnessed a whopping 139% rise in slum population.

The Census 2011 data also showed thta 60 towns in AP with slum population exceeding 50 per cent of the total population.

Visakhapatnam is the next largest city in AP after Hyderabad. The port city saw a 352 per cent rise in urban slums since 2001, Vijayawada, next AP's big city after the two cities, has seen a 71 per cent increase in slum population. In Ongole, saw its slum population increase by a dizzying 3,000 per cent.