Finding housing for poor a prime responsibility, the government has been working dedicatedly and has worked out things like development of large number of houses and allotted them to the poor. Funds have been collected and allocated for development of such units.
With increase in urbanization demand for residential property among urban poor has increased. Government needs to have an effective urban policy which could bring into effect to optimum use of land and overcome the issue of shortage of land to some extent.
Delineated below are a few suggestions for drafting housing policies for poor:
Housing policies should also have a hidden goal of broader economic growth which in turn will ensure regulated urban development.
Urban poor are the ones who actually run the urban growth engine thus the policy should have urban poor as the first and foremost priority and should not end up being just another futile policy that promotes indiscriminate migration and does nothing to solve the issues being created by it.
Instead of transferring the ownership to inhabitants government should look towards developing enough stock of rented housing for the poor.
The rents will hardly pose to be an additional burden on the poor, as they pay Rs 500 – 1,000 per month for dingy huts in slum, without access to basic facilities whereas here they will get the basic facilities and wont even face the uncertainty in tenure
Since housing arrangements for the urban poor means building lower income units and long term finances, these ventures can be of great benefits to the builders which in turn will help government to have full support of builders. A contract can be signed with private builders to develop these housing units for poor. A build-operate-transfer contract for tenure of 15-20 years can be an attractive proposal.
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India is witnessing rapid urbanisation where the urban population is expected to become 576 million in 2030 from the current 328 million.With this rapid urbanisation, one of the biggest challenges will be providing affordable housing to city dwellers, especially the poor. Housing is integral to the well-being of a family.In India,about 100 million persons live in slums and slum-like conditions without adequate basic facilities such as piped water, sanitation, schools, health, and so on. These numbers are expected to touch 200 million by 2020.
According to a Planning Commission Report, the urban housing shortage as in March 2007 was around 24.71 million and it will increase to 26.5 million by 2012. Ninety-nine per cent of this shortfall in housing is with regard to economically weaker sections (EWS) and low-income groups (LIG).
The Maharashtra Government introduced the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme and formed a body - Slum Rehabilitation Authority to implement the scheme .Under the SRA scheme private developers were encouraged to provide new decent accommodation to the slum dweller and in lieu of this they were given extra FSI which was permitted to be sold in the free market. Akruti Nirman & Dewan Housing both construction companies that have gone public in the last months, are the largest SRA developers in Mumbai.
Taking heed from the success of SRA, we now need to provide adequate EWS/LIG pockets or colonies on serviced land spread across the cities and especially near employment centres where people can live at affordable costs rather than squatting on vacant lands. Such housing pockets could be developed by government bodies . Private developers, colonisers and co-operative societies should be encouraged further with tax benefits and other incentives to make housing available to the economically poor at nominal rates. Joint sector projects between governments and the private sector such as the Bengal Ambuja Housing Project, are a few important steps which are already in place.
Government bodies should also seek support from NGOs and other civil society organisations in planning houses for the poor in terms of design and facilities. NGOs can also play an important role in loan recovery by encouraging and facilitating the poor to save part of their earnings in recurring deposits and by making micro finance available to them. Housing the poor is an urgent and important need for building socially inclusive cities offering equity of life for all. What we need is accurate planning and mainstreaming of the urban poor in the economic growth story of our urban areas.
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