URBAN POVERTY

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URBAN POVERTY

• A PRESENTATION AT THE NATIONAL COLLOQUIUM
  ORGANISED BY ARC AND JANAGRAHA
• BY
• Abhijit Sengupta

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Increasing Urbanisation

• 1951 2001
  Growth Rate
•  
• India population 361 m 1027 m 2.8 times
•  
• Urban population 62 m 285 m 4.6 times
•  
• In 1987/88, in towns with population below 50,000
  the of poor was 47, while for cities above I
  million the ratio was 27. In 1993/94 these were
  43 and 20 respectively.

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• Therefore
• Is there a need to concentrate on a particular
  type of urban area in an effort to reduce
  poverty?
• Is it appropriate to have two distinct
  approaches, one, say for the Class I cities, and
  another, more rural economy oriented for the
  small towns?
• In terms of facilities, too, is it possible that
  land for urban development is easier to obtain in
  smaller towns than in large cities?

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• Living in a slum is a proxy for urban poverty may
  not exactly related. Dharavi has incomes from 300
  to 300,000.
• Urban population below the poverty line dropped
•  
• 1987/88 1993/94 1999/2000
• 75.2 m 76.3 m 67.1 m
• 38.2 32.2 23.6
• But overall slum population grew from 26 million
  in 1981 to 46.2 million in 1991 and then to 61.8
  million in 2001.

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Beneficiary Identification

• The poverty alleviation mission of the Government
  of Kerala in 1993, Kudumbashree, combined nine
  diverse social and economic criteria as
  indicators.
• In 2000, the poverty index was modified, based on
  feedback, and this time, one of the factors was
  families without colour television.
• Different criteria eg 1 of MDGs, 24000 of
  Karnataka DMA, 17000 of DFCS

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• Therefore
• Should there be a single set of criteria for
  measuring urban poverty?
• Should not these be modified for regional
  requirements?
• Should the nodal Ministry of Housing and Urban
  Poverty Alleviation be required to fix such
  common criteria?
• How should these criteria be dovetailed into or
  made to run parallel to - the international
  standard of 1 per day?

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Capacity to Alleviate Poverty

• When the 74th amendment to the Constitution
  devolved power, resources and responsibility to
  local bodies, various concomitant requirements
  were not considered.
• Due to the poor quality of our middle and higher
  education, much of our municipal administration
  is run by people with little or no skills in
  strategic thinking, managerial ability and
  administrative acumen, or even language skills
  for that matter.
• The UNDP supported project of the Ministry of
  Urban Poverty Alleviation aims to build capacity
  of the urban local bodies to improve service
  management and delivery and has a long list of
  other aims. But underfunded and therefore
  inadequate.
•  
• There is no programme of the Ministry that
  concentrates on this essential requirement.

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• Therefore
• What should be the approach of government towards
  capacity building of government and urban local
  bodies staff in specific terms? What is the
  position regarding the Ministrys proposed Urban
  Academy?
• What should be the approach towards NGOs and
  parastatals in this respect?
• Can the Ministry of HRD and the Ministry of UEPA
  work together on this, and if so who should
  coordinate? Is special funding possible/appropriat
  e?

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Poverty Reduction

• Spread manufacturing and services sector
  enterprises into small towns. Added advantage of
  reducing influx into large cities.
• Need to depend on IT related work, low setting up
  costs, but human and power supply capacities to
  be built up.
• Agro based industries obvious for small towns.
• Use other boom sectors of the economy where low
  skilled self employment would be possible. The
  semi-skilled needs of the construction and real
  estate sector must be met through job oriented
  schooling.

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Credit and employment programmes

• How successful in reducing individual poverty.
  The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY)
  launched in December 1997 has two components
  the self employment (USEP) and the wage
  employment (UWEP).
• Rs 822 crores in 8 years for
• -         skills training to a little over 8 lakh
  persons,
• -         forming about 1.5 lakh Thrift and
  Credit Societies,
• -         nearly 44000 womens groups (DWCUA),
• -         assisting nearly one lakh micro
  enterprises under the USEP
• -         and creating 5.6 crore mandays of work
  for a population of nearly 7 crore poor people.
• Proposal for the creation of a national level
  Apex Bank for Urban Development to provide credit
  for urban poor. How should this function ?

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• Therefore
• Should there be different approaches - at least
  in emphasis - for small towns and large
  agglomerations in tackling poverty alleviation?
• How should skills development be looked at?
  Should school curriculum in certain
  localities/government schools compulsorily
  include vocational education for services sector
  jobs? How should these be dovetailed into the
  local urban processes?
• Can there be special learning programmes for slum
  dwellers to encourage information seeking and job
  matching?
• What incentives should be provided for the
  creation of jobs to the private sector in semi
  urban areas/peri-urban areas/small towns?
• Should there be a national level banking approach
  for the urban poor? How should micro credit be
  garnered and made available for the urban poor?
  Is there any other appropriate approach? How far
  is self help group approach successful, and can
  it be expanded exponentially?

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Urban Services, Slum Redevelopment and Housing

• Related aspects of urban poverty
  infrastructure, housing and other services.
  Obvious need is to reduce, if not remove, the
  need to live in slum conditions for 67 million
  people.
• But
• -The total annual investment needs of water
  supply, sanitation and roads sectors at Rs.
  28,036 crores per year on an average during
  1996-2006.
• -Plan allocations for Urban Development have been
  in the range of only 2 of the total Five Year
  Plans. (Does this not suggest concentrate efforts
  targeted only in poor areas? ) --Although the
  ratio of urban to rural poor is 13.5, the
  ratio of funding for poverty programmes is
  135, that is ten times more.

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• Slums often cover expensive land in the heart of
  urban centres. And the demand for such land
  often can lead to further marginalization of the
  urban poor. The 430 acres of Dharavi is a case in
  point. (Can this be a strength, a point of
  leverage?)
• -Tendency for the urban poor is to drift into
  city outskirts, and peri-urban habitations
  require special focus.
• -Class divide between the affluent city dweller
  and his poor service provider. Should affluent
  citizens live in their own localities and the
  poor be provided low cost urban transport to
  their places of work., in rich urban pockets the
  urban body may not be required to spend on civic
  services in posh localities but concentrate on
  the poorer sections of the city

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• In the US, local government increasingly
  privatized. In 1965, less than 1 of all US
  citizens lived in private communities in 2005
  rose to 18 i.e. 55 million people in homeowners
  associations. Since 1980, about half of all
  housing in the USA has been on this pattern. New
  posh private housing colonies of
  Delhi/Noida/Gurgaon, Bangalore etc. step in this
  direction.
• Is this the direction of the future, is it the
  right direction? On the other hand would this not
  further encourage and legitimize ghettos? This
  trend is based on the approach of reducing the
  externality of poverty in the lives of the urban
  rich. But, this might be acceptable if and only
  if, the city authorities could and would ensure a
  better quality of life and better services for
  the poor and the destitute a big question mark.

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• Immediate need is to improve the existing living
  conditions of the urban poor in slums. Various
  models available - which, administratively, would
  be able to blend the best of a public private
  partnership, and which would ensure the
  sustainable development of our slums?
• Should whole new townships be built to
  rehabilitate slum dwellers?
• Should the existing slum be completely remodeled?
  Which is more feasible? Financial limitations
  need to be considered.

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• Therefore
• What should be the approach of the ULB towards
  individual slums, combining the requirements of
  dignified habitation and sustainable livelihood?
  Can this be documented in a transparent manner
  and made known to the slum dweller who is
  ultimately the central stakeholder in this entire
  process?
• How can funding for urban infrastructure and
  poverty alleviation be increased to provide
  sufficiently for the huge sums required to
  provide adequate facilities for the urban poor?
• Can high cost realty deals be taxed with cess to
  provide housing for the urban poor?
• What should be policy approach towards urban land
  use and the management of urban poverty given
  issues of habitation location and services
  provision?
• How should urban services be developed to cater
  to the needs of the peri-urban poor?

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• Thank you