People living in slums

The Government has launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in December 2005. The Sub-Mission on Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) under the JNNURM provide Additional Central Assistance to States/Union Territories for housing and related basic infrastructure facilities to the urban poor, including slum-dwellers. While BSUP is implemented in 65 Mission cities, small and medium towns are covered under IHSDP. The Government has also launched new scheme called Affordable Housing in Partnership in 2009 for the construction of 1 million houses for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS)/Low Income Group (LIG)/Middle Income Group (MIG) with at least 25% for EWS category. The scheme aims at partnership between various agencies: Central and State Governments, Parastatals, Urban Local Bodies, Developers etc. In addition, the Government has announced the launching of a new scheme called Rajiv Awas Yojana for the slum dwellers and the urban poor. The scheme would extend support to States that are willing to assign property rights to people living in slum areas. The Government’s effort would be to create Slum-free India through the implementation of Rajiv Awas Yojana.

The Government has suggested to the State Governments to converge BSUP and IHSDP with the scheme of Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) which has been revised with effect from 1st April, 2009. The revised Scheme of SJSRY has the following five major components, namely-

(i) Urban Self Employment Programme (USEP)

(ii) Urban Women Self-help Programme (UWSP)

(iii) Skill Training for Employment Promotion amongst Urban Poor (STEP-UP)

(iv) Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP) (Applicable to Towns with less than 5 lakhs population as per 1991 Census)

(v) Urban Community Development Network (UCDN)

The Guidelines of the revised SJSRY scheme have been circulated to the State Governments and have been adopted. The Sanctioning Committee at the Central level for BSUP and IHSDP has made suggestions to States to ensure the convergence between BSUP and IHSDP and SJSRY, to the extent possible. State Governments have taken preparatory steps to implement the revised SJSRY Guidelines, especially those related to self-employment, wage-employment and skill development programmes for the urban poor, including beneficiaries under BSUP and IHSDP.