Assessment of Shelter Programmes in Andhra Pradesh

50 Pages·2012·0.95 MB·English

Working Paper - 11

Assessment of Shelter Programmes in
Andhra Pradesh

Darshini Mahadevia
Trishna Gogoi

December 2010

Centre for Urban Equity
(An NRC for Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India)
CEPT University
Working Paper -11

Assessment of Shelter Programmes in
Andhra Pradesh

Darshini Mahadevia1
Trishna Gogoi2

December 2010

Centre for Urban Equity
(An NRC for Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India)
CEPT University

1 Member-Secretary Centre for Urban Equity, and Professor at the Faculty of Planning and Public Policy, CEPT
University. Email:[email protected]
2 Research Associate, Centre for Urban Equity, CEPT University, Email: [email protected]
Acknowledgements

Research is funded by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA), as an
activity of the National Resource Centre of the MoHUPA. CEPT University is a designated NRC
of the MoHUPA and Centre for Urban Equity (CUE) acts as CEPT NRC. This research was
funded for the year 2009-2010. Authors are grateful to MoHUPA for this research funding.

Authors would also like to acknowledge contribution of Ms. N. Vijaya Kumari for the field work
in Andhra Pradesh. Our gratitude to the officials of the Andhra Pradesh State Housing
Corporation Ltd. for making the data available to us. Last but not the least, our gratitude to the
people who responded to our survey and made this research possible.

Disclaimer

The comments and opinions in this paper are of the authors and not of the Centre of Urban
Equity or CEPT University.
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Contents
1 Shelter Security: the Policy Concern in India ...........................................................1
1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................1
1.2 Shelter Security and Role of State .......................................................................4
1.3 Indian state and policies for shelter provision ....................................................5
1.3.1 Current urban housing scenario in India ..........................................................5
1.3.2 The Housing policy scenario in India ...............................................................7
1.4 Introduction to research locales .......................................................................11
1.5 Methodology ....................................................................................................12
2 Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojna (VAMBAY) ......................................................... 14
2.1 Project locales ..................................................................................................15
2.2 Status of case-study sites: VAMBAY ..................................................................16
2.2.1 Availability of basic services ..........................................................................16
2.2.2 Availability of Physical and Social infrastructure ............................................17
2.2.3 Quality of housing .........................................................................................18
2.2.4 Expenditure Pattern ......................................................................................19
2.3 VAMBAY performance in Andhra Pradesh ........................................................20
3 Rajiv Gruha Kalpa (RGK) ....................................................................................... 23
3.1 Project locales ..................................................................................................23
3.2 Status of case-study site: RGK ...........................................................................24
3.2.1 Availability of Basic Services ..........................................................................24
3.2.2 Availability of Physical Infrastructure ............................................................25
3.2.3 Availability of Social Infrastructure ................................................................25
3.2.4 Housing Quality ............................................................................................25
3.2.5 Expenditure pattern ......................................................................................26
3.2.6 Rajiv Gruha Kalpa performance in Andhra Pradesh .......................................27
4 Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) ........................ 28
4.1 Project locales ..................................................................................................29
4.2 Status of case-study sites: IHSDP ......................................................................30
4.2.1 Availability of Basic Services ..........................................................................30
4.2.2 Availability of Physical and Social Infrastructure ...........................................30
4.2.3 Quality of Housing ........................................................................................31
4.2.4 Expenditure pattern ......................................................................................32
4.3 IHSDP performance in Andhra Pradesh.............................................................33
5 Critical Assessment on the housing programmes in Andhra Pradesh ................... 34
5.1 Post-project situation .......................................................................................35
5.2 Impact of rehabilitation ....................................................................................35
5.3 Absence of Community Participation ................................................................36
5.4 Summing up .....................................................................................................36

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Table 1: Housing Shortage as per Socio-Economic Groups, 2007 estimates ................................6
Table 2: Status Update of BSUP and IHSDP (as on September 2010) .........................................6
Table 3: Shelter Programmes and their Coverage, Andhra Pradesh ........................................... 13
Table 4: Sample Selection for Current Research ....................................................................... 13
Table 5: Status of VAMBAY in Andhra Pradesh ...................................................................... 15
Table 6: Availability of Basic Services (% of hh) ...................................................................... 17
Table 7: Availability of Physical Infrastructure (hh in %) .......................................................... 17
Table 8: Status of Housing Structure (hh%) .............................................................................. 18
Table 9: Change in Average Expenditure for Different Items, NTR Nagar ................................ 19
Table 10: Distance travelled to work-place (% of hh), NTR Nagar ............................................ 20
Table 11: Change in the Average Expenditure on Select Items, Nandanavanam ........................ 20
Table 12: Coverage of households by Basic Services under RGK Scheme (% of hh) ................ 24
Table 13: Coverage of Households by Physical Infrastructure (% of hh) ................................... 25
Table 14: Change in Average Expenditure per Household ......................................................... 26
Table 15: Distance to be travelled to the City Centre (% of hh) ................................................. 27
Table 16: Availability of Basic services, IHSDP (% of hh) ....................................................... 30
Table 17: Coverage of Households by Physical Infrastructure (% of hh) ................................. 31
Table 18: Change in the Expenditure Pattern after In-Situ Development ................................... 32

Figure 2-1: VAMBAY Housing, Nandanavanam and Schematic design of Unit* ...................... 19
Figure 3-1: RGK Housing in Mamillaguda and Schematic plan* .............................................. 26
Figure 4-1: Relocated IHSDP housing in Mamillaguda ............................................................. 31
Figure 4-2: Site plan for Nalgonda ........................................................................................... 32

Boxes

Box 1: VAMBAY in the News……………………………………………………………………………21
Box 2: Rajiv Gruha Kalpa in the News……………………………………………………………………27
1 Shelter Security: the Policy Concern in India

1.1 Introduction
Housing is a primordial human need, with importance next only to food and clothes. It is
important not only for human well-being but also for the economic benefits to the household and
the nation. This being recognised, Habitat I Conference was held for the first time in 1976 at
Vancouver, which declared:

“The improvement of the quality of life of human beings is the first and most important objective of
every human settlement policy. These policies must facilitate the rapid and continuous improvement in
the quality of life of all people, beginning with the satisfaction of the basic needs of food, shelter, clean
water, employment, health, education, training and social security without any discrimination of race,
colour, sex, language, religion, ideology, national or social origin or other cause, in a frame of freedom,
dignity and social justice. …. In striving to achieve this objective, priority must be given to the needs of
the most disadvantaged people.”1

The Habitat Conference declarations set the tone for domestic policies. But, the policies have to
emanate also from the international treaties on human rights, to which India has been a signatory.
Housing is considered as a basic human right in the international policy making and UN treaties.
India is a signatory to the following treaties:

i) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 - This was the first international instrument that
recognised that the right to adequate housing is an important component of the right to an
adequate standard of living.

ii) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), 1996 – This act
reaffirms and elaborates the right to adequate housing because adequate standard of living
includes adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living
conditions.

iii) General Comment of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) -
The CESCR has provided a holistic understanding of housing through its General Comments:
“In the committee’s view, the right to housing should not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive
sense, which equates it with, for example, the shelter provided by merely having a roof over
one’s head or views shelter exclusively as a commodity. Rather, it should be seen as the right to
live somewhere in security, peace and dignity. While adequacy is determined in part by social,
economic, cultural, climatic, ecological and other factors, the Committee believes that it is
nevertheless possible to identify certain aspects of the right that must be taken into account for
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this purpose in any particular context. They include the following seven core elements to
determine the adequacy of housing:

• Legal security of tenure, including legal protection against forced evictions;
• Availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure;
• Affordability;
• Habitability;
• Accessibility for disadvantaged groups;
• Location, and
• Cultural adequacy”2

iv) Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – Article 5 of the Convention
obliges State parties to undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms
and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic
origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the right to own property and the
right to housing.

vii) The Declaration on the Right to Development (1986) – This was adopted by the UN General
Assembly in Resolution 41/128 on December 4, 1986, under declares: “States should undertake,
at the national level, all necessary measures for the realisation of the right to development and
shall ensure, inter alia, equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources,
education, health services, food, housing, employment and the fair distribution of income. …
Appropriate economic and social reforms should be carried out with the view to eradicating all
social injustices.”

viii) Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992) – This was adopted at the UN World Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. The
aspects covered by this agenda are:
• Safe and healthy shelter is essential to a person’s physical, psychological, social and
economic well-being;
• Provision of housing should be a fundamental part of national and international action;
• All countries should adopt and/or strengthen national shelter strategies, with targets based,
as appropriate, on the principles and recommendations contained in the Global Strategy for
Shelter to the Year 2000;
• People should be protected by law against unfair eviction from their homes or land;
• All countries should, as appropriate, support the shelter efforts of the urban and the rural
poor, the unemployed and the no-income group by adopting and/or adapting existing codes
and regulations, to facilitate their access to land, finance and low-cost building material;
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• Countries should promote the regularisation and upgrading of informal settlements and
urban slums as an expedient measure and pragmatic solution to the urban shelter deficit;
• States should establish appropriate forms of land tenure, which provide security of tenure
for all land users, especially indigenous people, women, local communities, low-income
urban dwellers and the rural poor.

The issue of shelter security has been covered also in the Millennium Development Goals
(MDG). Goal 1 of the MDGs is about eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and the target is
halving the proportion of people whose income is less than US$ 1 a day. Shelter security is a
means for the urban poor to improve their living conditions, which in turn has potential to
improve their health and by that employment and incomes, all these resulting in coming out of
poverty and transforming their lives (Mahadevia 2010).

The goal 7 of the MDGs is about ensuring environmental sustainability. Two targets within this
goal; target 10 of halving the proportion of population without safe water and basic sanitation
and target 11 of significant improvement in the lives of at the least 100 million slum dwellers by
2020 are directly related to improvement of living conditions of the slum dwellers and the urban
poor. Hasan et al (2005) suggest that meeting of the MDGs would mean (i) doing urban
development in another way than has been done till now, in other words t change the urban
development paradigm, (ii) addressing at the least water and sanitation needs immediately, and
not through privatisation as is being sought to be done now; (iii) addressing land availability for
the poor through either tenure regularisation or through creation of new housing for the low
income groups and (iv) financing alternatives for the slum dwellers.

The Istanbul Declaration (para. 8) and the Habitat Agenda (para. 39), both have, “reaffirmed the
commitment to the full and progressive realisation of the right to adequate housing, as provided
for in international instruments”. Shelter security efforts globally are aimed at reducing poverty
and inequality, focussing on issues of livelihood, health care, gender equality and housing, etc.

In keeping with the global discussions on ‘housing as a human right’, promoted in the UN-
HABITAT declarations (1976, 1996, 2001, 20023), and now with the purpose of meeting the
targets of the MDGs, developing countries around the world have been reformulating their
housing policies. In India also, and for the first time, large-scale housing programme has been
launched, on account of the first ever national urban renewal mission named Jawaharlal Nehru
National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2005. The housing component of the mission is
the Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) for the mission cities and Integrated Housing and
Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) for the non-mission cities. All the existing public
housing programmes for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) or Low Income Groups
(LIG), either of the national government, such as Valmiki Ambedkar Awaas Yojana
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(VAMBAY) or the state level programmes, wherever they existed, have been subsumed under
the BSUP and IHSDP. There is a need to assess the achievements of the past public housing
programmes and now the BSUP and the IHSDP, wherever implemented. While, the BSUP and
IHSDP were under implementation, the national government, looking at the preliminary results
coming from their implementation, realised that the ongoing efforts were too fragmented and that
probably not reaching the target population on account of non-participation of the slum dwelling
communities. The national government therefore is in the process of launching a national level
urban housing programme named the Rajiv Awaas Yojana (RAY).

As mentioned, the early reports about implementation of BSUP indicated that there was total
lack of community participation and by that neglect of social aspects of housing in the
programme. In some cities in Gujarat, the dwelling units constructed under the BSUP
programme were being used for the purpose of rehabilitating those displaced by city-level
infrastructure programmes (For Ahmedabad see Our Inclusive Ahmedabad 2010 and for Surat
see Mahadevia and Shah 2010). The BSUP as a result has become a programme of rehabilitation
rather than creating housing stock for the slum dwellers and the urban poor on new sites. The
preliminary reports also suggest that the new housing sites have been located outside the city
creating a general overall problem of accessibility for those allotted the new BSUP housing. It is
in this context that this paper takes a critical look at the public housing provisions by the
government in Andhra Pradesh and analyse the impact of housing programmes on the
beneficiary-communities through assessment of pre and post-project conditions.

1.2 Shelter Security and Role of State
Shelter security is a state responsibility. Global experience, both in capitalist as well as socialist
countries, has shown that when the state delivers social security, be it in housing or any other
sector, it enables citizens across income- and social-groups to become independent of the
market-forces. The state can implement uniform standards of social security across all groups,
which is not possible for private, non-formal agencies (UNRISD 2010).

The 1980s saw the developing countries recognising ‘housing as a basic and merit good and a
prominent element of social security’ (Mahadeva, 2006, UNRISD, 2010, UN’s MDGs). But, at
the same time, the countries went ahead with implementing the policy package under the
conditions of Structural Adjustment Programme, which meant the state withdrew from the
provisioning of housing and shifting to just facilitating its households to access shelter/ housing
through deregulating land (with the assumption that this would increase the supply of land),
making finance available and bringing in the private sector to construct housing. In India, the
public agencies gradually withdrew from providing public housing and begun to implement
shelter upgradation and sites and services programmes (Mahadevia 2002).

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