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-The Hindu
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<em>Jaipur: </em>Slum dwellers in Jaipur will shortly get the benefit of a slew of schemes with the selection of the Rajasthan Capital in the National Urban Livelihood Mission. The Rajiv Awas Yojana will also be implemented here from next month for construction of houses for them.
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Jaipur Mayor Jyoti Khandelwal announced at a discourse on &quot;Urban poverty and strengthening of civil society voices&quot; here on Thursday that special measures would be taken for raising the standard of living of the residents of slum colonies at a cost of Rs.1.34 crore under the National Urban Livelihood Mission, which would be implemented over the next 15 months.
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Similarly, the Rajiv Awas Yojana starting in Jaipur from next month will provide housing facility to the poor people residing in 16 slums. About 12,000 houses will be constructed in Sanjay Nagar Bhatta Basti for them and the construction of 2,500 of these dwelling units will start in May under the scheme's first phase.
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The difficulties faced by over 4.87 lakh people residing in 238 authorised slum colonies in Jaipur were discussed at the discourse organised by an advocacy group, Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), at the State Resource Centre here.
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A large number of stakeholders from the Government and voluntary sectors attended the event, while the slum dwellers provided an overview of the issues at the grassroots.
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Ms. Khandelwal said the Jaipur Municipal Corporation was sensitive about the problems of slums and had recently taken action to restart the closed public toilets. She said new toilets would be built at the locations identified by slum dwellers and asked the non-government organisations to spread awareness among the residents of slums about their rights.
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Municipal Corporation chief executive officer Jagrup Singh Yadav said the National Urban Livelihood Mission had selected Jaipur and Madurai for execution of its project works and added that the scheme's draft and action plan would be formulated shortly.
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As part of the mission, self help groups will be established for the poor in the city along with the facilities of loans and credit linkages after training.
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PRIA project manager Santosh K. Kaushal and programme officer Anshu Singh provided details of actions taken in the slum areas with the support of local communities. They said the biggest challenge in the slums was on the front of supply of information about the Government schemes to the people and getting the land title deeds and BPL cards prepared for them.
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Slum dwellers Shahin Chaudhary of Bhojpura, Maya of Jhalana Kund, Draupadi of Rajiv Nagar and Lal Chand of Jhalana-B spoke about the problems of roads, sewage channels and toilets in their localities.
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PRIA director in New Delhi Manoj Rai said the efforts for apprising the communities of the welfare schemes available for them had elicited positive results and led to changes in the fields of health care, sanitation and construction of toilets and sewerage. He laid emphasis on resolving the problems relating to BPL cards in the urban areas.
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