The number of poor families in the city as provided by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board is 320,000. The city’s poor population, based on an assumption of 3.83 members per family (based on the survey), is 1,225,600, and accounts for 18.53 per cent of the city’s population. This indicates that 19 per cent of the city’s population contributes to nearly 14 per cent of the city’s economy, which is not a negligible amount.