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 !
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25 May 2016
www.hemenparekh.in / Blogs
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