Definition of Slum

The Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja has said that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation set up a Committee to look into various aspects of Slum Statistics / Census and issues regarding conduct of slum census 2011 under the chairmanship of Pranab Sen. The Pranab Sen Committee submitted its report on 30th August, 2010. The Committee has defined Slums as:

“A Slum is a compact settlement of at least 20 households with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly of temporary nature, crowded together usually with inadequate sanitary and drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions”.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, this definition has been adopted for Rajiv AwasYojana with a special dispensation for North Eastern & special category states, where such settlements of 10 -15 houses would be considered as slums.

She said, the Government of India launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) on 3rd December, 2005 to assist cities and towns in taking up housing and infrastructural facilities for the urban poor including slum dwellers in 65 cities in the country under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) Programme for the urban poor in the country. For other cities/towns, the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) was launched with the objective to strive for holistic slum development, with a healthy and enabling environment by providing shelter and basic infrastructure facilities to the slum dwellers. The Mission period is from 2005-2012.

Kumari Selja said, the Ministry is also implementing the Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing the Urban Poor (ISHUP), which is meant to provide 5% interest subsidy on loans upto Rs.1.0 lakh for construction and purchase of houses for the EWS and LIG beneficiaries of the urban poor including Slum dwellers. This Scheme has now been dovetailed with Rajiv Awas Yojana.

She said, in pursuance of the Government’s vision of creating a Slum-free India, a new scheme ‘Rajiv Awas Yojana’ (RAY) has been launched on 02.06.2011. The Phase I of Rajiv Awas Yojana is for a period of two years from the date of approval of the scheme with an outlay of Rs.5,000 crores while Phase II will be for the remaining period of the twelfth plan period.

The Minister said, the Scheme will provide financial assistance to States that are willing to assign property rights to slum dwellers for provision of decent shelter and basic civic and social services for slum redevelopment, and for creation of affordable housing stock. Fifty percent (50 %) of the cost of provision of basic civic and social infrastructure and amenities and of housing, including rental housing, and transit housing for in-situ redevelopment – in slums would be borne by the Centre, including operation & maintenance of assets created under this scheme. For the North Eastern and Special Category States, the share of the Centre would be 90% including the cost of land acquisition, if required.

She said, the Affordable Housing in Partnership Scheme, which encourages public private partnerships for the creation of affordable housing stock, has been dovetailed into RAY. Under this scheme, central support is provided at the rate of Rs.50,000 per unit of affordable dwelling unit or 25% of the cost of civic infrastructure (external and internal), whichever is lower.