FROM A few token end-of-the-speech lines in political addresses pro-poor urban governance projects have suddenly moved centre stage.
Even as the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) racks its brains for ways to bag the largest share of the Rs 349-crore MP Urban Services for Poor (MPUSP) programme another corpus clamours for attention.
This time from Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Mission bosses will release funds for 5,000 low-cost houses to be built in 13 localities for slum dwellers, urban poor and below-poverty-line (BPL) residents on Monday.
Each house is estimated to cost Rs 1.50 lakh of which the owner will be required to shell out Rs 45,000 with the local self, State and Central governments chipping in with the balance.
The Corporation has also announced that it will arrange loans at easy instalments for the intended beneficiaries of the low-cost housing scheme.
It may be noted that the IMC is currently angling for a lion’s share of the Rs 349 crore urban development corpus being funded jointly by the UK-government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the State government.
It already has amounts totalling to over Rs 100 crore for pro poor projects promised by the Asian Development Bank under the Community Area Improvement Scheme component of the Urban Water Supply and Environment Improvement Project and the UN Habitat under its Slum Environment Improvement Initiative (SESI) and the Water for Asian Cities (WAC)
programme.
It already has amounts totalling to over Rs 100 crore for pro poor projects promised by the Asian Development Bank under the Community Area Improvement Scheme component of the Urban Water Supply and Environment Improvement Project and the UN Habitat under its Slum Environment Improvement Initiative (SESI) and the Water for Asian Cities (WAC)
programme.
With all this money either lined up or already en route why aren’t things improving? “The State and Central governments play a crucial role in the implementation of economic development and poverty alleviation programmes.
Many times we prepare a proposal and forward it to the governments but it is kept pending and this delays the entire programme. However, we are in the process of streamlining the IMC Poverty Alleviation Cell and then things will move at a faster clip”, said Mayor Dr Uma Shashi Sharma.