Centre to establish women Mayors forum: Selja

Mumbai, June 9 (UNI) The Union Housing Ministry will establish a forum of women Mayors to bring about a gender perspective into local governance to focus on poverty and livelihood issues for women.

The announcement was made today by Minister of State for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Selja at the Mayors' conference.

Ms Selja said ''A multi-pronged strategy will be devised to overcome the shortage of 24 million housing units during the 11th plan.'' ''The Union Ministry will finalise the National Urban Housing policy that will include the role of various players including the Mayors to create houses for the poor in the cities,'' she said.

The city corporations should make provisions for the street vendors and hawkers, she added.

The conference was attended by around 50 Mayors from all over India, wherein discussions were held on issues of urban poverty reduction in the cities.

The conference brought out the importance of the Mayors and how they can play an important role in poverty alleviation and livelihood programmes in their cities, as a Mayor is more familiar with the problems of the cities than the state and the Central governments.

UNI