Sreelatha Menon: The right to shelter

JNNURM's slum housing programme uses exclusion criterion that could create more homeless

The slum development programme in the Capital, which promised to build 200,000 houses in two years under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), has been stuck, thanks to the confusion on who benefits from these houses.

The government is willing to include those who have been residents in various slums for at least five years. This is being opposed by many, as the excluded would be evicted. It is simple: every one needs a home — owned or rented. And, such schemes while acknowledging few slum residents right to a house, render others homeless.

Migrants in other cities are worse off when it comes to slum development. When slums are relocated, the Gujarat government, for instance, requires the beneficiary to have stayed in the state for at least 25 years and in the slum for 10 years, if he/she is to find a roof in the new housing scheme prepared under the scheme.

West Bengal is equally inhospitable. It requires beneficiaries to have stayed for at least two decades in a slum to be eligible to own a house in the state.

Maharashtra, on the other hand, requires the slum dweller to have been on the electoral roll of the slum area as on January 1995. Or, he/she should have stayed for at least 15 years in the slum with an electoral card. While Madhya Pradesh has kept the cut-off date three years lower at 1998, Bihar requires the beneficiary to have resided in the area for at least 10 years to be eligible for a house.

Delhi is said to have around 500,000 to one million people who need houses. This includes 200,000 households living in slums now. Each relocation would uproot several people, who may have walked into the city a few months ago, but would still need a roof over their heads.

Giving private houses has not been accepted as a wise policy in countries that have done well in urban development.

The case of Singapore or Hong Kong is well-known, but does not seem to inspire the state governments, with emphasis on distribution of land rather than leasing out houses.

The Delhi government is looking at digging out more land to bridge the deficit. But the list of people who want houses in any city would be endless. Such endless quest can only be quenched with rented housing, on the lines of Canada and Singapore.

According to Chetan Sanghi, CEO of the newly constituted Department of Urban Shelter Improvement Board in Delhi, about 74,000 slum households would be shifted to new houses, while another 74,000 would have their existing slum houses re-developed in situ, where they already exist. If these very houses were given on rent, these limited number would suffice several times, as people come and go in big cities.

In fact, such rented housing should be available for all sections of society in cities where there is a rush of migrants, rather than push them to buy houses. Another suggestion from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the context of the financial downturn is that the governments should stop giving tax benefits on home loan repayments, which pushes people into extravagant investments and also get tax relief in the bargain.

An OECD report last year said the housing policy in many countries helped trigger the financial crisis. It said the pro-home ownership policies in these countries drove up demand and, therefore, prices. It even asked for taxing home ownership, considering it as any other investment.