Govt to issue photo Id cards under SRA for slumdwellers

The minister of state for housing, Sachin Ahir, announced on Wednesday that rehabilitated slum dwellers would receive photo identity cards within six months.

The minister of state for housing, Sachin Ahir, announced on Wednesday that rehabilitated slum dwellers would receive photo identity cards within six months.

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The statement came after legislators in the state council raised a stink over the haphazard allocation of homes to slum dwellers under the government’s flagship Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (SRA) scheme. The government issues photo identity cards to prevent slum dwellers from selling their homes within 10 years of allocation.

Nationalist Congress Party legislator Kiran Pawaskar, who raised the issue in the council said, “Of 1.27 lakh slum dwellers only 9,547 have been allotted photo identity cards. I have proof of people who have bought three homes and sold them before the stipulated period. It has been three years since the government started allocating houses, why has there been such a delay in providing ID cards? Does the government not have enough resources to provide them?” He also demanded a one-window system where both the allocation of homes and issuing of identity cards can be done.

Ahir admitted that from 2009, of the 61,127 slum dwellers that have been allotted homes, only 16,727 have been given identity cards. “ We realised that the process of allocating cards was tedious and could not be handled by a single agency we hired. We have decided to contact agencies that are doing other government cards and appoint them for this purpose. We will complete this within six months,” he said.