Since in slums there is a lack of cleanliness, serious diseases can spread easily and quickly. Slum inhabitants go through many problems, a few being they lack of public transit, constant migration, lack of water, no sewage or solid waste facilities, pollution, and shelter shortages . They also face poor ventilation, due to a lack of windows and electricity. They also tend to establish homes on unused land that is usually privately owned or government owned land. Therefore a concise definition for a slum would be a crowded urban area, marked by poverty, where living conditions are very bad and in poor condition .

There are many reasons for the origination of

SEWA underwent two distinct phases. Phase one from 1974 to1977, it concentrated on mobilizing self-employed women to bank with them, and acted as an intermediary for its depositors to get loans from nationalized banks. SEWA also lobbied the government in order to get cheap credit, and thus they helped to reduce the interest rates for the poor. In the second phase in 1976, the SEWA bank started advancing loans to its depositors from its own funds, and withdrew the credit from nationalized banks. SEWA lends money to its members if it is for working capital, for work tools, and for housing . The SEWA bank acts as a catalyst, and is the fist bank that was able to demonstrate that poor women do save, use loans productively and repay loans in a timely manner. With the help of SEWA bank's strategic action, 400 plots of land in women's name under the act, in giving loans and building housing scheme demonstrate that this act can in fact be productively used to benefit the poor and alleviate poverty. SEWA bank also acts as an instrument to transfer assets to the names of women, since only one percent of the world's assets are in the name of women . Gujarat being a dry state has had water shortages, but SEWA has helped women to build their own water structures, like wells and ponds, and thus have helped them manage through their own water communities. Thus SEWA gives poor women control of natural and financial resources. A major policy change by SEWA is to allow banks to extend its activities to rural areas.

Before 1950, slums were mostly found around mill areas due to the cotton boom. Industrial workers in one-room tenements mostly occupied these slums. However slums have risen exponentially since 1950, for example the population in Bombay (a 12 Km island) has tripled since Independence in 1947, resulting in 60% of the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1231
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)