'Sanitation is a issue for country's urban poor'

New Delhi, May 31: Sanitation is one of the main issues for India's poor living in cities as the space for housing was receding in the face of swelling number of urban slum dwellers, says Minister of State for Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja.

''Allowing people to live in inhumanly dirty conditions is the violation of the right to live with dignity and to health. It is demeaning. It is not a small issue,'' she says.

''It was the force of this realisation that led my Ministry to lay special focus on improvement of urban slums and providing low cost sanitation in them, as a result of which the integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme(IHSDP) was formulated,'' Ms Selja told sources.

She said that as per the 2001 estimates, the slum population was estimated to be 61.8 million. The ever increasing number of slum dwellers causes tremendous pressure on urban basic services and infrastructure.

The supply of land in housing have failed to keep pace with increase in urban population resulting in denial of basic services to a large number of households, she said.

The basic objective of the IHSDP scheme, which combines the existing Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojan(VAMBAY) and National Slum Development Programme(NSDP), is to strive for holistic development of urban slums with a healthy and enabling urban environment by providing adequate shelter and basic infrastructure facilities to those dwelling in them.

These include water supply, sewers, community latrines, street lights, community bath, widening and paving of existing lanes and street lights.

The scheme, Ms Selja, says applies to all cities/towns, execpting those covered under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The allocation of funds among states will be on the basis of the states' urban slum population to total urban slum population of the country, she said.

The IHSDP includes slum improvement, upgradation and relocation.

Under the scheme not less than 25 sq mtrs area and preferably two -room accommodation plus kitchen and toilet will be constructed.

One important aspect of the scheme is that the title of the land will be jointly in the name of both husband and wife.

Besides the IHSDP, her Ministry was also implementing the Basic Services to the Urban Poor(BSUP), which is the sub-mission of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM), she said.

This scheme was also focussed on integrated development of basic services to the urban poor. The mission launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December last year aims at providing improved housing, water supply, sanitation to the urban poor with special stress on convergence of services in the fields of education, health and social security, said the Minister.

The Minister said another related scheme was the Integrated Low Cost Sanitation Scheme(ILCS), which was earlier being implemented through the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, but was at present under Ministry. The scheme envisages conversion of dry latrines into low cost twin pit sanitary latrines and liberation of scavengers through total elimination of manual scavenging.

She said the scheme had been taken up on a 'whole town basis' and was being operated through the Housing and Urban Development Corporation(HUDCO) by providing a mix of subsidy from the central government and loan from HUDCO.

A total of 586 towns had been declared scavengers free since the launch of scheme for which the Centre had so far released Rs 309.39 crore.

Ms Selja said the draft of the National Urban and Habitat Policy lays great emphasis on slum improvement. It envisages that slum construction programmes would be encouraged by schemes with cross subsidisation. These would be based on the basis of audit of slum areas covering health status, education, sanitation, environment, employment status and income generation.

The scheme proposes that transferable development rights and additional FAR would be released as an incentive for providing shelter to the poor. The private sector, community based organisations(CBOs), non-government organisations and self Help groups would be involved in such activities.

The land or shelter provided to the poor/slum dweller would as far as possible be made non-transferable for a period of ten years, she said.

Specific areas would be taken up based on poverty alleviation strategies of the National Urban Renewal Mission.

The policy starts with premises that income generating activities in slums have a direct bearing on housing and other environmental issues, so the various development programmes would be converged to cover the target groups, she said.

UNI