13 states have given suggestions for panels under NULM: Centre

The Centre today told the Supreme Court that 13 states have given suggestions on names of persons for constituting state-wise committees to deal with the issue of implementation of the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM).
It told a bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta that the government was awaiting responses from the remaining 16 states on the issue.
The Centre had earlier said that the court may consider constituting a two-member committee in each of the states to deal with the issue of urban homeless and implementation of the NULM.
The apex court had last month directed the Centre to coordinate with the states and Union territories (UTs) and suggest the name of an officer, who retired at the level of a secretary in the central government, a senior official of the urban development department and a person from civil society for each of the committees.

During the hearing today, the bench asked the Centre's counsel, "What about the Union territories?"
The counsel said the government had written to the UTs about it and some of them conveyed that they did not have urban homeless people.

The Centre requested the court for grant of time for compiling the data received from the states.
The bench gave four weeks time to the government and posted the matter for hearing after five weeks.
Meanwhile, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh told the court that they have identified 12 and 50 government buildings respectively which could be used to shelter homeless people.

"There are government buildings which are lying vacant and these can be used for it," the bench observed.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing one of the petitioners, told the bench that in Delhi, a large number of government buildings have been identified for this purpose.
He said that a social audit of funds given under the NULM should be conducted as was being done for several other government-run schemes.
The court was hearing a matter relating to providing shelter to urban homeless in the country and implementation of the scheme.
It had earlier expressed shock that welfare schemes were not being effectively implemented even after spending thousands of crores of rupees on them.

The court is first dealing with the status of three states -- Haryana, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh -- among 11 and two UTs which have been highlighted by the apex court- appointed committee to oversee implementation of the NULM.
The petitioners had earlier referred to a report of the apex court-appointed committee headed by former Delhi High Court judge Justice Kailash Gambhir and said that a number of shelter homes in these states were much less than what was required.