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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | NAC draws up plan for shelters for over 3 lakh urban homeless by Nitin Sethi

NAC draws up plan for shelters for over 3 lakh urban homeless by Nitin Sethi

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published Published on Jan 19, 2012   modified Modified on Jan 19, 2012

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has recommended a Rs 4,250 crore programme to provide shelters and other amenities to homeless in Class 1 cities in the country.

The council has suggested the National Programme for Shelters and Other Services for Urban Homeless to set up 6,800 permanent shelters for around 3 lakh homeless - 15% of the estimated population of people living in the open across urban India.

The council, moving further with its 'rights framework' based programmes, has suggested that the scheme be run on a 75-25% cost sharing basis between the Centre and states with the Union government bearing the entire capital costs.

The government's think tank has recommended that all 499 one lakh-plus cities be fully covered under the 12th Five-Year Plan with the scheme becoming completely operational by the third year of the plan, covering 15% of the overall homeless population which is 1% of the total urban population.

But keeping in mind the model code of conduct, which is in force due to the assembly elections in five states, the council has decided not to make an official announcement of its recommendations as it usually does.

The shelters are to be built after preparing a city plan to ensure these are built near areas where the homeless are concentrated and using new and existing infrastructure.

The council said the shelters, unlike most of the current ones, should include amenities such as beds and bedding, toilets, drinking water, lockers, first aid, primary health, de-addiction and recreation facilities.

The council recommended setting up a Special Mission for the Urban Homeless at the state level headed by the chief secretary and a city level committee to oversee the work. It recommended that the shelters could be run by civil society organizations as well as public or private sector companies on a bidding basis.

Homeless people, the council suggested, regardless of whether they stayed in the shelters or not, should be automatically entitled to BPL identification, PDS ration cards, bank or post office accounts, admission to government schools and to hospitals free of cost without the need of any other documents.

In a suggestion meant to ensure that the shelters don't become the end objective either for the homeless or the state, the NAC also suggested that under the programme, state government and urban bodies would be duty-bound to attempt to assist all homeless residents of shelters to move to higher levels of housing such as working men's hostels, working women's hostels, old persons' homes or affordable individual housing.

The council suggested that the homeless should get priority in social and public housing schemes such as Rajiv Awas Yojana or any other government programme preferably within three years of initial entry into shelters, or application, whichever is earlier.

The council is keen to get the scheme implemented in view of the abject failure of states to set up shelters despite Supreme Court orders and constant monitoring.
 
The apex court commissioners' report had noted that only three states, including Delhi, had achieved more than half their mandated target of shelters and some had even willfully disobeyed the court orders.

The Times of India, 17 January, 2012, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-17/india/30635058_1_shelters-urban-homeless-homeless-people


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