The Hindu Business Line : New slum development scheme to cover 74 cities

Barely a fortnight after the President’s address to Parliament outlining the new Government’s development priorities, work is under way on translating some of these goals into actionable programmes.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), it is learnt, has already drawn the broad contours of an affordable housing scheme for urban slum-dwellers across 74 cities having a population of half-a-million and above as per the 2001 Census.

The idea is to “create a slum-free India in five years,” as the President, Ms Pratibha Patil, underlined in her June 4 address.

The scheme — to be called Rajiv Awas Yojana on the lines of the existing Indira Awas Yojana to meet the housing needs of the rural poor — proposes Central assistance of Rs 1.5 lakh for each family living in slums.

“The plan is to extend Rs 50,000 as grant and the balance Rs 1 lakh as a 20-year bank loan. Banks will be given an interest subvention of five per cent to enable them to lend at 4 per cent. The equated monthly instalment (EMI) would work out to around Rs 600 in this case,” official sources told Business Line.

This assistance is, however, conditional upon the State Governments concerned assigning property rights to slum-dwellers.

“It could be on the land on which they are already squatting or even tenements being built under various slum rehabilitation projects involving public-private partnerships. How the States do it is not our concern; the sole criteria is that the beneficiary be assigned a clear heritable title to the property,” the sources noted.

Many real estate players — HDIL, Akruti Nirman Ltd, DB Reality, Sumer Builders, SD Corporation (a Shapoorji Pallonji-Dilip Thacker joint venture) and Rizvi Builders, among others — have interests in slum redevelopment, which is seen as an area offering significant business potential.

According to the 2001 Census, the country has 74 towns/urban agglomerations with population above half-a-million. This includes 35 with more than a million and of which six have more than five million (Greater Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore in that order).

The 2001 Census recorded the country’s total population residing in slums (as notified by State/local governments) at 40.30 million. Of this, 16.57 million were concentrated in 26 municipal corporations, including 5.82 million in Greater Mumbai, 1.85 million in Delhi, 1.49 million in Kolkata and 0.75 million in Chennai.

The new scheme is tentatively being planned for launch on August 20, the birth date of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

“Well, that’s what we are aiming for, though the scheme’s finer details have to be worked out by the Ministry of Urban Development,” the sources added.

ID cards

Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet, on Thursday, is expected to clear the establishment of the National Authority for Unique Identity Authority (NAUID), likely to be headed by the Co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies, Mr Nandan Nilekani.

The Authority will oversee the implementation of the current Government’s ambitious programme of providing all citizens with a unique identity number that would be a permanent marker right from their birth to death.

In her speech, the President had set a three-year time frame for completion of the project. “The Cabinet will basically approve the governance structure for the NAUID, with its chairman to be given the rank of a Cabinet Minister,” the sources informed.

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