The Central Government through the Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) is providing houses to the urban poor who belong to the economically weaker sections (EWS) and the lower income groups (lIG).
The national mission targets to provide two crores houses to the urban poor by 2022. It aims to rehabilitate the slum dwellers and promote affordable housing for the weaker sections through ensuring land and construction of house with basic amenities, credit linked subsidy, and assistance to individual house construction and enhancement in all urban statutory towns identified in Census 2011.
The PMAY for urban area has four major components which include slum redevelopment in its original place with a grant of one lakh per house to each beneficiary, affordable housing through credit linked subsidy for EWS and lIG with 6.5 per cent of interest rate up to Rs 6 lakh of loan for twenty years as a Central sector scheme, housing in partnership with Central assistance of Rs1.5 lakh per house for EWS, and subsidy for beneficiaries construction or enhancement with Rs1.5 lakh assistance.
The minimum carpet area of the EWS and lIG house is between 30 sqmt and 60 sqmt. The beneficiaries fulfilling annual income criteria of up to Rs 3 lakh must have Aadhra card, PAN card and bank account. The beneficiary should not own pucca house by his /her name or by any of his family members anywhere in India. The ownership of the house will be in the name of the female head of the household or both husband and wife. The houses must promote green and environment friendly and disaster resistance technologies and the layouts are suitable to the area. The houses must have power, water supply, sanitation and drainage facilities. The progress of the construction work will be monitored through geo-tagged photographs. The State Government Housing and Urban Development Department and State Housing Boards and urban local bodies have to implement these projects.
The Census of 2011 revealed that 31. 16 per cent of the population of our country lives in urban areas though it is less than world average of 54 per cent but this has been increasing very rapidly and it is expected that by 2050 about 65 per cent of people of Asia will be in urban areas. The State of Odisha has 16.68 per cent of the people who live in urban areas. It is said that about one fourth of the urban population of the State live in slums whereas it is 18 per cent in national level. There are 223 statutory and census towns, three municipal corporations, 37 municipalities and 63 NAC in the State. The slums in the urban areas have been increasing and many of the slums are not notified as slums. As per census 2011, about 70 lakh people live in urban areas of the State out of which 10 lakh are Scheduled Castes and six lakh are Scheduled Tribes. Mostly the rural poor of socially marginalized sections are the inhabitants of slums. The urban housing schemes can be linked to SCSP and TSP fund in budget available with Central and State Government to ensure house for homeless SCs and STs in urban areas. There has been growing urbanization for various reasons as people shift from rural villages to urban areas primarily in search of better opportunities of livelihood, higher wage, employment, education and relatively better living. The employment in agriculture sector has not been expanding due to lack of major investment in agriculture whereas investment in non-agricultural sector has been increasing with higher wage and more employment opportunities. There are also other reasons such as social issues, family dispute, separation, caste and communal conflicts, landlessness and natural disaster, displacement by mining and industry, dams, and deforestation that force many people in distress to land in slums.The people of economically weaker section, low income groups and daily wage earners mostly unskilled and semi-skilled workers are in informal jobs with low wage. They are compelled to live in slums and city outskirts without proper shelter, safe water, sanitation and other basic amenities required for a decent and dignified living. The slum dwellers are a major workforce of the city and contributing the most critical support of everyday life such as cleaning and washing, construction work and all other odd jobs essential in city life but unfortunately they have been deprived of their basic human rights in Government policies and programmes in terms of getting minimum wage and social security benefits for a long time. largely they do not have much bargaining power with employers due to lack of union and legal protection under labour laws.They have no property and regular income as collateral for housing loan from commercial banks to securely construct a house of their own; rather they live with fear of unnoticed eviction and harassment by anti-social elements in the slums. The houselessness affects their family life and living condition as well as health and peace of mind which prevent them from any long term investment in housing amenities. A number of studies have established that houselessness have wider ramification over health and work culture of workers. Right to housing is a human right recognized by UDHR and a fundamental right under Article 19 and 21 of Constitution of India. In this context, land and housing rights of slums dwellers should be seen as a basic human need which should not be compromised at any cost; rather globally it is understood that ensuing land and housing rights of urban poor must be treated as an investment for building better cities that is inclusive of all its population irrespective of their economic .The move of the State Government to provide house in cities and land in urban areas to landless poor is a good step in that direction though its implementation is a big challenge before the Government due to lack of political and administrative will which has been reflected in case of many other for the poor people of the Stte. The municipal administration has a major role in identifying genuine beneficiaries but there has been continued huge corruption and nepotism of local ruling party leaders that affects the implementation process. It is a fact that many influential people with political and administrative backing have occupied land in slums and rent it to the poor slum dwellers. The process of beneficiary selection for urban housing projects depends more on transparent involvement of the Government and urban . In the perspective of housing for urban poor, a recent decision of the State Government definitely is a step forward. It is reported that the Cabinet has decided to bring two ordinance –The Odisha Municipal Corporation (amendment) Ordinance 2017 and land Rights to Slum Dwellers Ordinance 2017. The aim is to provide property right to slum dwellers and enact a separate legislation to provide land rights to the slum dwellers for redevelopment, rehabilitation and upgradation of slums. Along with the new legislation, the State Government will create an urban poor fund for rehabilitation and development of the slums. It is expected that the decision will be beneficial to slum dwellers in all four major cities, municipalities and NAC areas of the State. The EWS in municipal corporations will avail flat of 300 sqft and the slum dwellers in municipality and NAC areas will avail land of 450 sqft and 600 sqft respectively. The monthly income ceiling of EWS is Rs 18,000 per month in cities and \Rs 15,000 in municipality and NAC areas. It is told that the right over the property and land is for residential use and can be mortgaged but cannot be transferred. The State Government must make use of thee Central housing schemes for the urban poor and identify genuine beneficiaries to realize the dream of housing for all.
(manasbbsr15@gmial.com)