Poor Planning for
Urban Poor ?
Mumbai
Mirror ( 14 May 2016 ) carries a report with following headline :
"
Over 2 lakh homes built for urban poor lying vacant "
According
to this report :
#
10.32 lakh low cost houses were built under JNNURM / Rajiv Awas Yojna
#
Of these, 2.38 lakh flats found no
takers !
REPORTED
REASONS :
#
As per Shri Vankiah Naidu ,
" Allotment could not be made because of the reluctance of slum dwellers
or beneficiaries to shift , incomplete basic infrastructure and lack of
livelihood sources "
#
As per town planning experts ,
" The problem is that most of these houses are constructed in the
outer
limits of the cities , making it inconvenient
for the poor to travel and the
installment can go up to Rs 4,000 / - per month , which is beyond the
reach of many of the poor "
Though
not an expert , either on housing or on town planning or on earning
/
installment paying capacities of the Urban Poor , I had made some simple
suggestion
in my following blog ( dt 05 June 2014 ) :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 5 June 2014
An important aspect of urban
renewal is to get rid of slums , by resettling
slum-dwellers in better houses
Then convert those vacated
slum areas into gardens
But slum-dwellers are
unwilling to vacate their huts .
Why ?
Over the past 25 / 30 years ,
the standard method was to move the slum-dwellers into some temporary ,
make-shift transit camps , pending permanent rehabilitation
But that promised "
permanent rehabilitation " never came !
Those who agreed to get
shifted into those transit camps , continue to live there for
generations - without any hope of ever moving into multi-story concrete
buildings with running water / electricity / toilets
Given this broken promises ,
who would agree to shift out ?
Second problem is availability of jobs nearby where they are
forced to move - even if these buildings happen to be well-built , modern and
permanent multi-storied buildings
Who would want to move to a
better / permanent house , if it is 30 Km away from a work-place ?
No one wants to spend 4 hours
on the road every day , commuting to a place of work in dense traffic , riding
a crowded bus / train !
But most slum-dwellers would
happily vacate their slums and move 150 Km
away , if ,
* It is a well built
building with all amenities
* It is a
permanent home ( - and not a transit facility )
* It is given FREE , on ownership basis
* There is a job
within 1 Km of the new home
This is exactly what China is
doing , by building ONE brand new Mega City , EVERY 20 DAYS !
And moving 250 million
slum-dwellers into those cities over the next 20 years ( - nearly ONE MILLION
people , EVERY MONTH ! )
May be this is what NaMo was
thinking when he dreamt of constructing 100 Mega Cities in next 5 years - at the
rate of ONE city EVERY 18 DAYS !
OLD cities cannot
" Re-new " themselves , until well-planned NEW cities are built first and
ready to receive those old city slum-dwellers and offer them jobs
Only problem :
* Mega City of Dholera ( in Gujarat
) is under construction for over last 3
years and expected to
cost , Rs 70,000 Crores
* Central Government has
neither the money needed to construct 100 cities,
nor the administrative /
technical competence for such a project
* Democratic
Institutions are un-suited for taking bold / harsh /
controversial decisions
- then bulldoze !
It seems urban renewal will
remain a mirage !
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25
May 2016
www.hemenparekh.in / Blogs
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hemen parekh
Marol , Mumbai , India
( M ) +91 - 98,67,55,08,08
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