One very important new feature of the Census of India 2001 is the identification of slum blocks and enumeration of the slum population in cities/towns with a population of 50,000 or more.

With urbanization and industrialization, and growth in manufacturing and commercial centres, there has been a tremendous increase in the slums and slum population in cities.

It became increasingly important to have information about several aspects related to slums, and slum dwellers such as housing and demographic conditions, health conditions, economic conditions etc. The information on slums collected in the 2001 census is bound to be very useful to urban planners and administrators.

The 2001 Census of India revealed that in all there were 607 towns reporting the existence of slums. Provides a list of the states along with the number of towns reporting slums.

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It can be observed that the highest numbers of towns reporting slums is Andhra Pradesh (76 towns), followed by Uttar Pradesh (65 towns), Tamil Nadu (63 towns) and Maharashtra (62 towns), Chandigarh, Tripura, Meghalaya and Andaman and Nicobar Islands have reported only one town each with slums.

As expected, the highest percentage of slum population (48.9 per cent) is in Greater Mumbai, in slums, followed by Faridabad (46.6 per cent) and Meerut (43.9 per cent).