India is developing holistically. Indian economy is the developing mixed economy. It is the world’s third largest economy by purchasing power parity and seventh largest economy by nominal GDP. The upshot of this economic performance is shattering of the international poverty line. Bhanumurthy. N. R. et al have concluded in his paper that economic growth seems to be accompanied by an adverse inequality effect except in the urban areas in the second period. This means that the growth effect and inequality effect have mostly operated in the opposite direction.
Data and Facts related to SDG-11
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Executive Summery
India is developing holistically. Indian economy is the developing mixed economy. It is the world’s third largest economy by purchasing power parity and seventh largest economy by nominal GDP. The upshot of this economic performance is shattering of the international poverty line. Bhanumurthy. N. R. et al have concluded in his paper that economic growth seems to be accompanied by an adverse inequality effect except in the urban areas in the second period. This means that the growth effect and inequality effect have mostly operated in the opposite direction. However, the growth effect dominated over the inequality effect, and this caused poverty to decline. The availability of infrastructure including information and technology and improved access to health and literacy has possibly contributed to a rise in access to productive employment, and thus reduced the adverse inequality effect in the urban areas. The net effect of population movement from rural to urban areas also shows a fall in the incidence of poverty (rural and urban areas combined) though when specific to urban areas it has a tendency to raise the incidence of poverty. With the increase of sustainable cities in India, the urban labor force is also growing. This is the lead cause of high standard of living in urban agglomeration but the wage rate is drastically declining due to availability of cheap labor force. Urban poverty even though starkly to the government but both absolute and relative poverty is not been addressed by the policy makers.
Internationally there is no definition for homeless. They are the most deprived population. According to the 2011 Census, 938,000 people were homeless in India. This is a huge under-estimation according to activists working in the field. At least 1% of every Indian city and town population is homeless, the Supreme Court Commissioner’s Office estimates. India’s urban population is 377 million, according to Census 2011. The urban homeless people live a grueling life devoid of shelter and social protection. They are described innumerably like as roofless, homeless, shelter-less, pavement dwellers. The homeless people tend to be invisible groups especially to officials. Therefore, they are rendered anonymous because they usually lack even the elementary markers of Indian citizenship like voter card, identity card. In every city of India homeless remain completely negated by local as well as state government. Governments have never focused in providing them essential necessities for basic survival. Hunger, deprivation and exclusiveness are common factor noticed among homeless people. Although there was provision of night shelter implemented by central government but has lapsed due to lack of initiative by state and local government. The homeless suffers substantial negligence of policies. They are deprived as various stereotypes are associated with urban homeless. Moreover, they are labeled as criminals, beggars, parasites, etc. In later phase of the 20th century government started focusing on the homeless people. Several policies were formulated to benefit the homeless people.
In 1992, the Ministry of Urban Development launched a small programme called ‘The Shelter and Sanitation Facilities for the Footpath Dwellers in Urban Areas’. Its objective was to ‘ameliorate the living condition and shelter problems of the absolutely shelter-less households till such time as they can secure affordable housing from ongoing efforts of state housing agencies.’ This scheme was implemented through the Housing & Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO) and covered major urban centers where there was a concentration of homeless persons or footpath dwellers. In October 2002, the scheme was renamed ‘Night Shelter for Urban Shelterless’ and was limited to the construction of composite night shelters with toilets and baths for the urban shelterless. These shelters were in the nature of dormitories/halls with plain floors used for sleeping at night. During the daytime, these halls were available for other social purposes such as health care centres, training centers for self-employment, adult education etc. This scheme was finally withdrawn in 2005 because most State Governments did not utilize the funds allotted to them properly. Both the schemes were not dependent on the local and state government. Instead they were by law obliged to implement this program for the most vulnerable citizen of India. These schemes does not directly helped in providing basic resources like shelter, healthcare, education, food to the homeless. Therefore, A scheme of ‘Shelters for Urban Homeless’ (SUH) was been launched in September 2013, and operational guidelines issued for it under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission in December 2013. The SUH aims at promoting sustainable development of habitat in the country with a view to ensuring equitable supply of land, shelter and services at affordable prices to all sections of the society. However, the most vulnerable of these are the urban homeless.
Problem Statement
The homeless are invisible group essentially for the officials. There is no reliable data available in any government site about the total headcount of homeless population. Census data is also based on projection and estimation, therefore this scheme doesn’t assure to cover all the homeless population. Problem of reliable estimation and clear definition of homeless population are encountered while implementing the scheme in ground level. Their invisibility has turned to be difficult to work with, even this can be possible that they have lived on streets for more than one generation and yet not been included in the list of homeless. The government should conduct a separate survey for enumerating total homeless and should focus in providing basic needs to each vulnerable group as they are also the citizen of India.
Scheme Detailing
Eligibility Criteria
i. The scheme will be implemented in all district headquarter towns and other towns with population of one lakh or more as per the Census of 2011. However, priority may be given to cities with population above one million and cities/towns of special social, historical or tourist importance identified by the Government of India/ State Government.
ii. Some of these shelters may cater to the most vulnerable groups within the homeless populations such as (a) single women and their dependent minor children, (b) aged, (c) infirm, (d) disabled, (e) mentally challenged etc. Actual break-up would depend on local particularities, and size of the city and total numbers of shelters.
Roles and Responsibility
i. Shelters will be a space for convergence and provisions of various entitlements of social security, food, education and health care systems. All homeless persons, in shelters should be given priority under various schemes, and government programmes.
ii. An illustrative list where such convergence is desirable is given below:
1. Identity Proof & Postal Address,
2. Elector’s Photo Identity Card (EPIC), etc.
3. Old age, widows and disability pensions
4. BPL cards, PDS ration cards, etc.
5. Bank or post office accounts
6. ICDS services
7. Admission to government schools
8. Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana
9. Admissions to public hospitals for health care
10. Linkage to Rajiv Awas Yojana
11. Free Legal Aid
iii. The operations and management of the shelters can be undertaken by ULBs or any other agencies identified by the ULBs such as:
(i) Homeless persons’ collectives
(ii) Youth and Women’s community based groups
(iii) Universities and Institutions
(iv) Nehru Yuya Kendras
(v) Unorganised workers’ trade unions
(vi) NGOs and CSOs registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and Trust Acts or other similar laws of the State Governments.
(vii) Self Help Groups and committees recognised by the State govt/ Urban Self Governments.
(viii) Resident Welfare Associations
(ix) Public/Private Sector Companies or Association
Financial Implementation
Government of India would fund 75% of the cost of construction of the shelters and 25% would be the State contribution. In case of Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), this ratio will be 90:10.
Implementation
i. Men shelters: Since the proportion of men among homeless is higher separate shelters for men could be built to primarily cater to single working men.
ii. Women shelters: Shelters for the exclusive use of women in terms of its location, design, services and support systems, could be designed to cater to the needs of women and their dependent children. In every ULB, no matter how small the populace, at least one such shelter for women would be constructed.
iii. Family Shelters: For families living on the streets; family shelters may be provided with a special design for privacy, with shared common spaces.
iv. Special Shelters: Taking into account special needs for segments of homeless persons, such as old persons without care, mentally ill, recovering patients and their families etc. special shelters may be provided.
Policy Alternative
Homelessness is not marginal phenomena based on individual dearth but it is a result of urbanization and rising standard of living in urban areas that many poorest urban dwellers are vulnerable to experience. To reduce the number of homeless population we need to focus on their spatial as well as social mobility. To improve living standard of people below poverty line who seek shelter under flyover, bridges in the cities, the government of India allocated separate fund for providing shelter and basic amenities to those population. Housing is often bedrock of other development interventions: health profile, education outcome, etc. The policy solution should improve the legal regulation and increase the tenure security, availability of shelter home, and availability of basic amenities in that shelter home. The publicity of the shelter home for homeless should be focused. Those working with implementation of the housing policy need to work within stringent timelines with transparency and accountability. Shelter is sole physical manifestation of the policy to specifically address homelessness. The policy should emphasis on quality infrastructure, clean and enough space and availability of basic services. The policy maker should emphasis on their social inclusiveness. To fulfill the gaps in the policy formulation and implementation we can use SMAART approach to collect reliable data and in monitoring the implementation process and to measure the quality of the goods and services.
Policy Recommendation
The provision related to shelter construction is quality facilities like adequate space, ventilation, light, access to water and clean sanitation. The facilities have marked to improve now days. Though almost every shelter has toilet within the facility but the hygiene level is low that promotes various public health diseases. The drinking water provision is still lagging in shelters. This might be a possible reason that people prefer not to stay in the shelter homes especially during summer. The shelter is to provide essential services for population belonging to poorest of the poor. There must be one shelter home for every one lakh population which can facilitate at least 100 people. Cooking space plays a very important role for the access of sufficient nutrition. This became critical with respect to shelter homes as they don’t have adequate kitchen facilities. This is another big reason why families and communities of homeless prefer to stay in open. Insufficient capacity of shelter is due to lack of data; therefore, fresh survey must be conducted at periodic interval. For better management and quality control there should be one single agency ideal for effective monitoring and functioning. Government need to focus on research based approach, strategy and framework for better implementation of the policy. The aspects like blankets, access to first aid, hot water, storage lockers, should be for improvement of rooms available. The homeless shelters should provide food for the needy. There should be a policy provision for providing subsidized food for the homeless population. The shelter must be accessible for all the population. The barrier free access should be offered to sick, old, specially able people. A policy outline after brainstorming the process will be able to render the existing scheme in a more holistic framework of action for homeless.
