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Poverty Alleviation


NDMC evicts 70 from home for the homeless

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The Hindu 12.02.2010

NDMC evicts 70 from home for the homeless

Staff Reporter

The home, previously for women, was converted into a family shelter home from February 9

 


‘Civic body not letting families cook food in the home’

Cannot implement till a copy of the orders is received: NDMC


NEW DELHI: About 70 people belonging to homeless families staying at the New Delhi Municipal Council’s shelter home in Sarojini Nagar here since Tuesday have been rendered homeless again, according to Delhi-based non-government organisation Indo Global Social Service Society (IGSSS).

The shelter home, which was previously functioning as a women’s shelter home, was converted into a family shelter home with effect from February 9 following a Delhi High Court order. However, the NGO which was responsible for rehabilitating the families in the shelter home has now alleged that the civic body is failing to take cognisance of the subsequent High Court directions to convert it into a 24-hour shelter and also allow the families to cook in the home.

Meanwhile, the civic body claimed that it could not implement the directions till it received a written copy of the High Court orders.

Indu Prakash Singh of IGSSS said: “Despite the Delhi High Court directions to make the shelter home functional for 24 hours, the NDMC chased out the families from the home on Thursday morning. Moreover, the High Court decision on Thursday to allow the families to cook in their premises has also been ignored by the civic body.”

NDMC Act

“Even if the NDMC wants to wait for the written orders, the civic body has a discretionary obligatory function to provide for the poor, homeless and destitute as per the NDMC Act. However, they do not seem to be acting on it,” he added.

Thirty-year-old Pankhi said: “I moved to the shelter home with my family on Tuesday, but the shelter home administration did not let us cook our own food and told us only to sleep there during the night and vacate the home in the morning. We were forced to eat outside and our bedding and luggage were later dumped under the Raj Nagar flyover. I am a small vendor in Sarojini Nagar and will now have to live with my family under the flyover.”

An NDMC official said: “We have only received the court’s order directing us to convert the premises from a women’s shelter home to a family shelter home, which we have done. We have not received any court order directing us to make the shelter home functional for 24 hours and allow the residing families to cook. If we receive these orders by Monday, we will take action accordingly.”

Last Updated on Friday, 12 February 2010 10:06
 

Selja promises support to urban poverty alleviation

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The Hindu 06.02.2010

Selja promises support to urban poverty alleviation

Special Correspondent

The Union Minister stresses need to tap tourist potential of State


Development agenda: Union Minister for Tourism and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja at a review meeting in Bhubaneswar on Friday.

BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister for Tourism and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja on Friday assured the State Government that the Centre would extend all support for proper implementation of urban poverty alleviation programmes and development of the tourism sector. During her meeting with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here, Ms. Selja discussed in detail about the various programmes aimed at urban poverty and underlined the need for better coordination among the agencies involved in the job.

Mr. Patnaik apprised Ms. Selja about the measures undertaken by his government to deal with the problems facing the urban poor.

Ms. Selja also emphasised the need for further development of the tourism infrastructure and extensive campaign to highlight the tourism potential of the State.

Review meet

Earlier, Ms. Selja attended a review meeting where she was informed about the progress achieved under various programmes being implemented by the Departments of Tourism and Urban Development of the State Government. In the meeting, the Union Minister advised the officials of the two departments to take proactive measures to ensure success of various schemes.

Last Updated on Saturday, 06 February 2010 02:15
 

Interest subsidy scheme for building houses in urban areas launched

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The Hindu 02.02.2010

Interest subsidy scheme for building houses in urban areas launched

Jeevan Chinnappa


State Government has termed it ‘Namma Mane’

It is envisaged to cover two lakh beneficiaries


Madikeri: Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing Urban Poor (ISHUP) of the Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Department has been launched in the State.

Termed as “Namma Mane” by the State Government, the scheme envisages covering two lakh beneficiaries in cities and towns in the State for providing interest subsidy over loans availed of by them from banks ranging from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 1.60 lakh for construction of houses on the sites allotted to them by the Government.

The benefit could also be availed of for buying constructed houses within the specified amount.

According to the Madikeri City Municipal Council (CMC), which has received a copy of the State Government order, the Directorate of Municipal Administration in the State would coordinate with the Deputy Commissioners in the districts and implement the scheme through the urban local bodies. The scheme would be publicised, and committees headed by Deputy Commissioners would finalise the list of beneficiaries, category-wise and as per priority.

In Kodagu, the selection committee, headed by the Deputy Commissioner, would have the local assistant commissioner, tahsildar and the executive officer of the taluk panchayat as members.

The CMC commissioner would be the member-secretary in Madikeri while the chief officers of town panchayats in Virajpet, Somwarpet and Kushalnagar in the district would act as member-secretaries in those areas. The Directorate of Municipal Administration should liaise with various departments to provide the benefits of subsidy to the beneficiaries that are available in the respective departments. The Nirmiti Kendra, a Government agency, has been asked to provide bricks, pre-constructed windows, doors and furniture to help the beneficiaries construct houses at a relatively cheaper cost, CMC Commissioner, Srikant Rao, told The Hindu.

Urban local bodies have been told to encourage people from the financially weak and low income groups to construct cluster houses in extension areas in towns and cities and provide roads, drinking water, electricity, street lighting, underground drainage system wherever such houses could come up.

The process of compiling the list of such people had begun in the Madikeri CMC limits, Mr. Rao said. The State Government has directed the Karnataka Housing Board to formulate programmes to encourage construction of houses under ISHUP wherever it has constructed houses in the State.

The Principal Secretary of the Department of Urban Development would head the State-level monitoring committee which would have the secretary of the Department of Housing, State-level coordinating officer of the bankers committee, representatives of the Lead Bank branches, regional representative of the National Housing Bank, regional representative of HUDCO and the Managing Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation and Director of Municipal Administration as members.

Beneficiaries could collect the applications from the offices of the urban local bodies, urban development authorities and Karnataka Housing Board, and submit them to banks seeking loans.

The secretary of the Department of Housing, G.V. Kongawad, has issued instructions to the officials concerned.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 02 February 2010 02:43
 

Haryana to build houses for urban poor

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The Hindu 01.02.2010

Haryana to build houses for urban poor

Special Correspondent

CHANDIGARH: The Haryana Government has decided to raise the living standard of the urban poor by making them partners in the development process, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said on Sunday.

He disclosed that licences for the development of residential plots and group housing colonies were granted by the Department of Town and Country Planning under the provisions of Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975.

At present, 20 per cent of the total plots and 15 per cent of the total flats were reserved for allotment to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of the society. As per the criterion, a person having monthly family income of Rs 3,500 was eligible for allotment.

Plots of about 60 square yards were allotted at a flat rate of Rs. 500 per square yard and the flats were allotted at a maximum cost of Rs. 50,000 per flat. The external development charges were not leviable on this component.

He said that in the absence of a defined criteria, it was very difficult to assess correctly the family income. To overcome this problem, it had been decided that 50 per cent of the plots reserved for EWS would be given to the Haryana Housing Board at the rate of Rs. 500 per square yard and the Board would construct flats on this land and allot the same to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families at a price approved by the government.

He said that the remaining 50 per cent plots and flats would be allotted by the colonisers to the BPL families which do not have their own flat/plot in any HUDA Sector/licensed colony in any of the urban areas in the state.

Mr. Hooda said that it would be ensured that these plots/flats were allotted to a “specific category” in the public interest.

The category could include slum dwellers occupying precious government land and “those who are to be rehabilitated as per policy/court orders or persons who have constructed houses on the acquired land and are eligible for rehabilitation as per government decision/court orders.”

Last Updated on Monday, 01 February 2010 02:01
 

Minority communities lack basic amenities: survey

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The Hindu 19.01.2010

Minority communities lack basic amenities: survey

T.V. Sivanandan

State Government study focuses on Gulbarga district

 


All households do not have toilets despite government intervention to improve sanitation

Twenty-five p.c. of households belonging to the minority community do not have water at hand


Gulbarga: The living condition of the minority communities in Gulbarga district continues to be a major cause of concern with a recent survey undertaken by the State Government revealing that the minority communities lagged behind in four out of the eight indicators taken for identifying the Human Resource Development Index (HDI) in comparison to the national HDI levels.

The survey carried out in 2008 found that despite several interventions by the Government to improve sanitation facilities by way of offering incentives to the people to construct toilets in every house, the situation in the rural areas of Gulbarga district was bad.

The survey found that only five per cent of the households in the rural areas have toilet facilities and open defecation is widely prevalent posing a serious health hazard. As against this, according to national HDI, 39.2 per cent of households belonging to the minority communities had a toilet in each of the houses.

Though Gulbarga district is included under the Total Sanitation Campaign programme, the district has not achieved the set target.

The female literacy rate in the district was only 43.1 per cent which was much lower than 56.6 per cent of the State and 57.1 per cent national average.

Another area of concern is with regard to providing safe drinking water facility to households belonging to the minority communities in rural areas. According to the survey, 25 per cent of the households in the rural areas were denied access to safe drinking water.

The survey report pointed out that the fact that healthcare facilities were not accessible to the minority communities in the rural area.

As much as 70 per cent of the population went without any medical care. Even in villages which had Primary Health Centres, the situation was not any better because adequate staff was not posted in the PHCs.

The institutional delivery continues to be low at there was only 23 per cent institution deliveries of the total deliveries in the district.

Another shocking finding of the survey was with regard to the ratio of male-female population.

In the Muslim community, the ratio was 1,000:646 while in the Hindu community it was 1,000:901

Last Updated on Tuesday, 19 January 2010 05:25
 


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