Eco growth not sustainable without improving quality of life:R

New Delhi, Dec 13 (UNI) Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy today said it is not possible to sustain the country's economic growth without improving the quality of life of the people, especially the urban poor.

Inaugurating the 'Asia-Pacific Ministers Conference on Housing and Human Settlements' here, he said in order to remain competitive, and enable the cities to act as the drivers/engine for growth, urban issues, particularly on infrastructure and housing for poor required urgent attention.

Urban population in the country had reached 285.4 million in 2001 in almost 5,000 towns of various sizes and was putting intense pressure on urban services and infrastructure, he said.

Hence, issues of urban poverty and environmental degradation now required immediate action. Dynamics of urban human settlement required to be managed by strategic and integrated local planning and; financial, managerial and technical resources among the local bodies and urban population, he added.

He identified the problems as anexplosive growth in urban areas, less than effective decentralisation, inadequate capacities of urban local bodies and institutional mechanisms, fragmented service delivery and predominant status of parastatal utilities, he added.

This required fiscal decentralisation commensurate with a functional one, accountable utilities with concern for poor, transparent land development policies, modern urban planning linking housing with transportation, appropriate housing finance systems giving shelter microfinance and community funds to low income groups and thrust on providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation to the urban poor by 2010, he added.

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