chennai for santhanari and her family of six relocation from a slum in ambattur in 2008 was a nightmare after living in a slum for 20 years she was evicted and resettled in a barren field in morai 20 km from chennai four years later the area still has no road water sanitation electricity healthcare or means of employment people in the citys slums who constitute roughly 11 of the citys population are increasingly being relocated in concrete ghettos on the fringes of the city disconnecting them from their social circles sources of livelihood and education say activists for instance with projects in kannagi nagar and semmencheri relocation has raised concerns about employment options law and order problems child labour and social unrest they said reasons for relocation include displacement due to land acquisition for public projects as well as disasters or accidents such as the tsunami or a slum fire last month the houses of 600 families were gutted in a fire at ambedkar nagar and on sunday a blaze broke out at srinivasapuram the second in three days a slum cluster housing 450 families in the old zoo maidan area near moore market was gutted in 2011 leaving all the families homeless kumar an auto driver who lives in the area sleeps in his vehicle as he has no house stella a maid cooks food for her family of four on the pavement sumati a construction worker says she could not salvage even a shred of clothing from her house the relocation process often drags on for years leaving them in makeshift tenements or on the pavements government promised a lot of things but we still sleep on pavements she said there is no drinking water and we are exposed to the elements some people living on pavements have been bitten by snakes tnn