Bread, clothing, and shelter are the basic requirements of human being. But it is still beyond the access of disadvantaged section of our society. Poverty and deficit of housing in rapidly growing cities are the reasons of proliferation of slum. The major objectives of the present study are: to examine the internal variation of the selected indicators of housing quality in slums of India, state wise, 2011,to examine the quality of housing of slum households in India, state-wise,2011and lastly, to analyze the comparative status between  Odisha and all India s scenario in terms of housing quality. The present study is entirely based on secondary data.  The secondary data has been collected from Housing Stocks, Amenities, and Assets of Slum, Census of India and Odisha, 2011. Simple percentage calculations, different statistical techniques like Co-efficient of Variation, Z Score, Composite Score are applied here to analyze the data. In respect of quality of housing of slum households, the accessibility of ‘electricity’ is more consistent and the availability of’ drinking water within premises’ shows very high internal variation.

The majority of North and Northwestern states and some states of South India are experiencing high level of quality of housing in slums.  Odisha as a low urbanized state is characterized by low level of housing quality of slum households. Most of the slum households of Odisha are of livable condition and permanent in nature and most of slum households are owned in ownership status. The accessibility of basic infrastructure to slum households is very poor. Therefore, the housing quality in slums of Odisha is lower than national average.