OCR A GCSE Geography Similarities and Differences

The city started experiencing ribbon development along the
transportation corridors with poor quality dwellings. Many of the public open
spaces and river banks were occupied by migrants. A large number of huts were
erected without any supporting infrastructural facilities. Establishment of
industries in some areas fostered the growth of many more slums and squatter
houses in their vicinity. In spite of many physical developmental schemes
undertaken by the government, the slums became an unavoidable part of the city.
Thus, the layout of Rajkot, which was well planned in the grid-iron pattern with
some open spaces as lungs and a river bank water-front, started decaying with
the emergence of slums. Presence of squatter settlements made the city areas
over-crowded, polluted the environment and deteriorated the standards of living
of the people.

The slums in Rajkot are experiencing a faster growth rate
than that of the city and many times that of the provision of facilities. There
were 24 slums with 4927 households in Rajkot in 1972-73. At present, there are
74 slums with 28,000 households. This indicates an increase of 468 per cent in
slum population in just twenty-five years.

The population in the slums varies from one locality to
another.

Religion and caste play an important role in the social
structure of the Rajkot slums. This is normal from the nomenclature itself.
Certain slum pockets are known by the caste of its inhabitants. The majority
(almost 90 per cent) of the slum dwellers are Hindus, the remaining being
Muslims & Christians.

In Rajkot slums, children below school going age form 8.91
per cent and older children (above 6 years) form 3.67 per cent of the total
population. The age group 5-17 pre-dominantly consist of school going children
and account for 22.7 per cent of the total population. Primary and secondary
education is free of cost. Rajkot Municipal Corporation runs 95 schools with
Naga

Detoxify the corridor
Michael Mazgaonkar writes about the saga of Hema Chemicals, a leading
exporter in Gujarat's industrial development estate, the Golden Corridor.




September 2001
: The
state of Gujarat takes pride as the flag bearer of India's industrial strength.
The accompanying hazards posed to the state's environment, public resources and
worker's health are met more with lip service than effective action. A 400
kilometer stretch between Vapi in south Gujarat and Mehsana in the north is
dotted densely by hotspots where, 'rivers' is a misnomer for industrial gutters,
handpumps spew coloured water and open lands, both government and private, are
good enough for dumping all manners of toxic wastes.

develop

He said: "Lesser flamingos are graceful, majestic, birds. They are not the
ones you can see at the zoo, because they are very difficult to maintain in
captivity, but the ones that you see on television in their hundreds of
thousands, crowded into a few specialist lakes in East Africa.