Infant Mortality and Socio-economic Inequality in Mumbai Slums and its Wards

Undoubtedly urban poor/slum population is deprived a lot facing the maximum brunt of the inequity in the cities. In this light it becomes imperative to find out what effect is cast by the proportion of slum population the inequity with respect to resources within the same slums and the human development index on the infant mortality rate in Mumbai and its 24 administrative wards. The second objective is to determine contribution of socio-economic inequality in infant mortality in Mumbai slums. The data for study has been gleaned from Human Development Report, Mumbai, 2009, Census of India, 2001 and National Family Health Survey-2005-06. The ward wise analysis with respect to three different regions of Greater Mumbai clearly shows that most of the wards of City Island had infant death around below 35 whereas most of the wards of Eastern suburbs had infant deaths more than 55 per 1000 live births. Some wards of Eastern suburbs such as M/E-Chembur East, M/W-Chembur West and L-Kurla call for special attention because these wards are having high concentration of slum population, low level of human development index and high burden of population on available health facilities which resulted into increase in the level of infant mortality rate during eight years time period.