Lack of provision for transit accommodation for the beneficiaries as per the ‘Housing for All’ guidelines of the Central government is one major drawback of the two bedroom housing scheme by the Telangana State government.
Though 37.6% of the double bedroom houses were proposed to be constructed in-situ, the State government has not sent proposals for ‘in-situ slum development’ to the Central government, resulting in loss of transit accommodation to beneficiaries as prescribed under the Central guidelines, a survey by Montfort Social Institute (MSI) noted.
MSI, in association with Campaign for Housing and Tenurial Rights (CHATRI), Housing Rights Network, and Hyderabad Slum People’s Federation has conducted the survey, with logistical support from Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Seven categories were identified for the study, namely completed homes, those under construction, slums demolished pending construction, possession certificates given pending demolition, slums on government land, slums on private land, and people living in rental houses. Thirty beneficiaries in each category were interviewed directly, informed Varghese Thekanath, convenor of CHATRI.
The survey had identified that 16 houses in the IDH colony, the pilot project for the scheme, went to a single beneficiary who was a local leader.
The project cost of the IDH Colony was revised from ₹3654 lakh to ₹4280.51 lakh by completion, which raises the unit cost to10.8 lakhs instead of the budgeted ₹7.75 lakh including infrastructure.
Sixty six percent of the total surveyed were daily wage labourers and found it difficult to pay huge rents during construction of the houses. Eighty-four percent complained of the negative effect on their incomes due to displacement from their homes where in-situ construction is planned. Of these, 34% were self-employed, and suffered loss of business. Education of 53% children has been adversely affected, and some of them dropped out; with parents hoping to come back and enrol the kids in the same school as earlier. Domestic workers too had to lose their income due to distant accommodation.
Apart from transit accommodation, one more ignored provision of PMAY was to consider the unmarried adult member in the family as a separate beneficiary.
Non-transparency in application process and allotments is one more lacuna highlighted by the survey. Even though the government has issued the criteria for getting a house, the application process has not been streamlined. In many slums, officials approached on their own and promised in-situ construction.
MSI has demanded that the DPR of the project be made public, and the beneficiary list be put up with photographs on the website, and at the construction site. Scrutiny by ward sabhas, beneficiaries in the quality control committees, inclusion in in-situ vertical of Central government, increased beneficiary participation among others were a few more demands.
