Projecting that the number of urban poor in the country will nearly double in the next two decades, the Centre today said it was working to meet their housing needs.
“As urbanisation grows, and the projected share of urban households rises in the next two decades from the current 28 per cent to 50 per cent of the country’s population, a grim prospect looms large that slums will grow... It is necessary to break away from past trends and take decisive action for inclusive urban development,” Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja said.
She was speaking at a function organised to celebrate the World Habitat Day, held on the first Monday of October every year. Enumerating the programmes launched by the government to deal with housing needs of the urban poor, Selja said other than the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission launched in 2005 — the government had launched the Interest Subsidy for Housing the Urban Poor and the Scheme for Affordable Housing in Partnership, both in 2009.
These programmes aim at creating additional dwelling units by enabling construction of about 2.5 million houses, with basic amenities for economically weaker sections and low income groups by the end of 11th Five Year Plan.
Selja said about 81 million people, or 25 per cent of the urban population, still subsist on incomes that are below the poverty line.
“Eighty per cent of their meagre earnings go towards food and energy, leaving very little for meeting the costs of living in an increasingly monetised society,” she lamented, adding that ill-health and disease frequently raise demands that draw them deeper into vulnerability and poverty.
She said under the Rajiv Awas Yojana, her ministry was working on aligning the national approach with global practice of giving ownership of property to the urban poor. “The global practice sees ownership of property as the best investment in democracy, by creating for the household due space within the formal system... Enabling the household access to the formal channels of credit and draw on institutional finance for incremental improvements and livelihood requirements,” the minister said.
Emphasising on the important role that state governments can play in this regard, Selja said: “States have accepted as the strategy of choice for land for social housing the in-situ development of slums wherever they are on municipal, tenable and unreserved land.”
She sought to dispel fear of several states that conferment of ownership of land to the slum-dweller will enable him to sell the property and create a fresh encroachment.
