‘House for slum-dwellers eyewash’

-- provide 20x30 ft house: BSM

BHUBANESWAR: The members of the Basti Surakhya Manch (BSM), an outfit working for the slum-dwellers living in the State, on Friday opposed the State cabinet’s proposal which was approved on September 25 to introduce the Odisha Property Rights to Slum Dwellers and Prevention of New Slums Bill to give accommodation to the slum-dwellers in apartments. The members said the proposal is eyewash and nothing else.

According to the State Government’s proposal, the slum-dwellers who earn less than Rs 5,000 per month would get a house in the housing scheme which is ridiculous, said the members. Most of the slum-dwellers are daily labourers who normally earn Rs 200 per day and Rs 6,000 per month, they said, adding, “If we follow the rule, the slum-dwellers will not get a house, then for whom they are making the scheme,” the members questioned.

According to the members of BSM, the Government would displace them from their land and give it to the real estate firms, builders and land mafias to construct big apartments and buildings by giving only 10 per cent reservation for them in the apartments. They would be given well furnished social jail rooms instead of providing a congenial space for them to live like human beings, they lamented.

“It is totally land grabbing plan of the State Government to get the costliest areas of the city where they are living in,” alleged the BSM general secretary Pramila Behera.          

Behera said, It is a well coordinated plan before the urban poll to woo slum-dwellers who constituent 25 per cent of the total urban population of the State. “We have seen many schemes like VAAMBAY, BSUP scheme of JNNURM, Dharavi model, Kalinga Kutir Yojana and now Rajiv Awas Yojana to rehabilitate the slum peoples and make the city slum-free, but what is the end product? The political parties forget after winning the election,” she said.

BSM president Ramchandra Sahu demanded that the Government to make a clear cut policy for the rehabilitation of slum-dwellers, supplying of RORs to the dwellers of tenable slums and to provide identity cards after registering their names under section 383 and 384 of the OMC Act, 2003 of the State Government.