Bihar, Bengal have most number of homeless in India

New Delhi, Nov 21: There 4.3 crore families in rural India living without houses in roadside, railway platforms, under flyovers in India. West Bengal leads the tally followed by Bihar.

The data has been given by ongoing Socio-Economic Caste Census which aims at mapping poverty indicators in rural India.

As per TOI report, "Bengal has as many as 35 lakh houseless families while Bihar has 34 lakh. Madhya Pradesh occupies the third slot with 32 lakh houseless families. Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state, has 25 lakh families without houses. Other deprived states are Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra."

A rural household is considered without shelter if it doesn't have a house or lives in a one-room or two-room house that has "kutchha walls and roof".

As many as 2.5 crore households have houses with one-room of 'kuchcha roof and walls' while 1.8 crore have two-room dwellings of 'kuchcha roof and walls'.

Jhuggis or huts are present in big numbers and the number of those without any kind of shelter is very less.

Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu will have a meeting with the chief secretaries of all the states and union territories to discuss their action plans on setting up temporary and permanent shelters for homeless people on Friday.

The meeting has been convened in pursuance of the direction of the Supreme Court, the ministry said in a statement.

"The meeting will discuss the number of homeless people in states/UTs, number of temporary and permanent shelters available, plans for construction and improvement of shelters and the steps taken by the state governments to implement schemes under National Urban Livelihood Mission," it said.

Naidu will also hold a day-long session with the chief secretaries to discuss, among other issues, various initiatives of the central government on building smart cities, provision of basic infrastructure in 500 urban areas, and development of heritage cities.

(With inputs from agencies)

OneIndia News