This is the first time the government has made an attempt to address the problem of urban poverty through policy intervention.
“The government´s approach to resolving issues related to the poor of the poor has thus far been scheme-based. The policy will put specific focus on primary issues pertaining to urban poverty such as skill enhancement, wage employment and self-employment opportunities,” says the draft document, a copy of which was obtained by Republica. [break]
For this, the draft policy envisages formulation of Urban Self-Employment Program, under which micro enterprises will be set up targeting the urban poor. The policy also envisions mobilization of cooperatives and creation of revolving funds to raise women´s access to finance.
To ensure the urban poor acquiring loans and setting up micro-enterprises have adequate vocational and entrepreneurial skills, the draft policy also envisages rolling out a program called Skill Training for Employment Promotion amongst Urban Poor. To complement this, the policy aims to introduce Urban Wage Employment Program, with the target of placing individuals, who have completed vocational training, at various workplaces.
In the meantime, the draft policy also charts out plans to assist the urban poor in organizing themselves into self-managed community structures to gain collective strength. “This will enable the urban poor to participate in implementation of urban poverty alleviation and social development programs,” the draft says.
It is said around 26 percent of the total urban population of about 4.52 million represent the urban poor. Many of these people live in deplorable conditions in slums or shoe-box apartments and do not even have access to basic sanitation facilities like toilets.
Acknowledging problem faced by this group, the Seventh Five Year Plan made first attempt to deal with the issue and came up with schemes for employment, housing and extension of basic services. But not much has been attained so far.
“The core belief of the policy is that the poor are entrepreneurial and have innate desire to come out of poverty. The challenge is to unleash their capabilities,” says the draft.
The first step in this process, as per the draft policy, is motivating the urban poor to form their own institutions. “These institutions need to be provided with sufficient (resources) so that the urban poor can manage the external environment, gain access to finance, enhance their skills and build enterprises and assets,” says the draft. “This requires continuous and carefully designed handholding support. An external, dedicated support structure from the national level to the city and community levels is required for social mobilization, institution building and poor promotion.”
In a nutshell, the policy believes urban poor programs should be demand driven and assistance should be scaled up in a time bound manner based on demand, as the urban poor need to drive the agendas themselves to come out of the clutches of poverty.
Related story
Ministry discusses draft of urban development act
