The large scale migration from the rural areas to the cities is causing rapid increase in rate of urban poverty and number of slums in the cities of Uttarakhand.
The Urban Development Minister of Uttarakhand Pritam Singh Panwar said this while addressing a conference of Urban development Ministers at Vigyan Bhawan on Thursday. The conference which was organised by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India for implementing the poverty alleviation and shelter improvement projects was chaired by the Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.
Panwar said that according to a survey conducted in the year 2011 identified 582 slum dwellings in the state where 153174 families and a population of 771585 reside. He said that the increase in slum areas have occurred more in the Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee, Rudrapur, Haldwani, Kashipur, Sitarganj, Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi and Manglaur cities. Panwar said that under the BSUP and IHSDP programmes of Government of India funded JNNURM scheme 1396 houses have been constructed with a cost of 253.79 lakh in 21 municipalities of the state. He said that the state has notified the Slum Areas Policy under which ownerships of the land would be handed over to the dwellers.