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:darshini@cept.ac.in

2 Research Associate, Centre for Urban Equity, CEPT University, Email: idtrishna@gmail.com

Working Paper -11

2

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.

Acknowledgements

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

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

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

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

2

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;

3

• 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

4

(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).

5

Within the neo-liberal policy agenda, the state policy is seen to be relegated to just providing for

the neediest in the times of crisis, rather than improving the macro-policy scenario and

governance as a whole as is expected of welfare states. Providing respite to target-groups became

an accepted measure of public action and thus created an exclusionary environment even within

the targeted groups. Moreover, social welfare and social security was left to market-forces, with

extension of privatization into healthcare, insurance, education and housing (UNRISD, 2010).

Market-based reforms brought about by liberalization were expected to bring efficient market

systems, from which benefits would trickle down to all sections of the society. The failure to

bridge the gap between vision of efficiency and equity as well as final implementation permeates

all public housing schemes, not only in India, but across the world. Evidence is the failure of

popular approaches to poverty-reduction, namely, Millennium Development Goals (MDG), IMF

and World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, etc. (Esser 2009, Clemens and Moss,

2005). The various declarations on housing and human settlement (HABITAT I, 1976;

HABITAT II, 1996) have reiterated the importance of an integrated housing market, with active

participation from all stakeholders, including, private sector, NGOs, communities, local

authorities, etc. Non-state and private agencies cannot substitute state’s role in social security

provision and public action. It is only the state which can create conditions for other

stakeholders’ involvement in the development sector – directly, through various subsidies and

regulations, and indirectly, through the design and scope of public interventions (UNRISD 2010,

Mahadeva 2006, Sivam et el, 2001).

The 11th Five Year Plan of India, with “Inclusive Growth” has brought back focus to housing and

shelter security in urban India. However, ironically, the “Inclusive Growth” agenda is moored

within the neo-liberal macro paradigm, leading to vacillation in the role of the state in provision

of housing. India’s urban housing scenario and current policies are discussed in the next section.

1.3 Indian state and policies for shelter provision

1.3.1 Current urban housing scenario in India

The MoHUPA in 2007 commissioned a Working Group on Urban Housing4 with a focus on

Slums to analyse housing situation in the 11th Five Year Plan period. Their final estimate is a

housing shortage of 24.71 million (as in 2007) in the urban sector. This estimate has been arrived

thus. For an estimated 66.30 million urban households, the acceptable housing units are 58.83

million. India’s average family size is 5.1 (as per Census 2001). One important dimension of

housing shortage is congested living, which is defined as atleast one married couple in the house

not having a separate room to live in. The report estimated such congested urban housing to be

nearly 12.67 million housing units. Further, estimated 2.39 million units were considered to be

obsolete; these are dwelling units which are 40-80 years old and require re-building or

maintenance. Nearly 9.78 million existing housing units are semi-pucca or kutcha, of which the

6

kutcha (2.18 million) needs to be upgraded. All these add up to 24.71 million units at the

beginning of the 11th Five Year Plan (2007) and reaching 26.53 million at the end of the period

(2012), in case there is no intervention.

The report has estimated that the nearly 98 per cent of High Income Groups (HIG) and 92 per

cent of Middle Income Groups (MIG) households have pucca housing units; in contrast, only 10

per cent of Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) households and 2 per cent Low Income

Groups (LIG) households live in pucca housing (pp 34). Thus, it is the EWS and LIG sections of

the society who would require housing supply as public housing from the government, while the

HIG and MIG can be serviced by the open markets. The report stated that nearly 88.13 per cent

of all kutcha houses are occupied by EWS households, while 11.39 per cent by LIG households

(pp.34).

Table 1: Housing Shortage as per Socio-Economic Groups, 2007 estimates Socio-economic category Housing shortage in 2007 (figs in mn)

EWS 21.78

LIG 2.89

MIG 0.04

HIG

Total 24.71

Source: MoHUPA 2010

Table 2: Status Update of BSUP and IHSDP (as on September 2010)

Indicators BSUP IHSDP Total Requirement as per

MoHUPA estimates

Budget allocation

(Rs. in Mn) 163,563.50 68,283.10 2,31,846.60 14,71,950

No. of houses sanctioned (units) 1,028,503 512,108 1,540,611 26,53,000

No. of houses completed (units) 244,247 96,029 340,276 -

Source: www. jnnurmmis.nic.in/jnnurm_hupa/jnnurm/DMU_REPORT_JNNURM.pdf, accessed on 1 December 2010

The funding required to meet the total housing shortage at the beginning of the 11th plan period

(which is 2007) had been estimated at Rs. 1,471,950 million. Another 7.26 million units

requirement will arise during the plan period, for which another Rs. 2,141,231 million would be

required. Since 2005, JNNURM’s second sub-mission on housing; Basic Services for the Urban

Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP), has been

addressing the housing and infrastructure requirements of the slum dwellers in India. The BSUP

is meant for the JnNURM’s mission cities and IHSDP for the non-mission cities. As per

September 2010, the MoHUPA’s status of these projects has been as given in Table 2.

Table 2 clearly indicates the sluggish pace of the current programmes to reach the required

goals. As of September 2010, total new housing stock created has been only 3.40 million units,

7

thereby lagging behind 23 million units more to meet the 11th Plan period deadline. Even the

budget allocation at Rs.2.31 million is way short of the estimated requirement of Rs. 14.71

million. It indicates that in the next 2 years, Rs. 12.4 million will be required to be spent, if India

is to meet the urban housing targets.

1.3.2 The Housing policy scenario in India

Unlike other east and south-east Asian economies, India was not deeply impacted by the Asian

crisis of 1997-1998. But, the economic crises of the late 1980s affected India, and the country

decided to liberalize the economy from 1991. Post-1991 period has seen a landmark paradigm

change in the country’s development policy approach. In the housing sector, the post-

liberalization reforms introduced the provision of housing finance and structured housing market

(UNRISD 2010). As per the Constitution of India, ‘right to shelter’ is included in the basket of

rights provided in Article 21 in the ‘Right to life’. Yet, housing sector has seen critical shortages

in housing stock for both vulnerable and middle-income groups as well as a highly unregulated

overall housing market.

After economic reforms two housing policies were framed but were left in the draft stage. These

were the National Housing Policy (NHP) of 1992, the 1987 draft becoming a full policy and then

National Housing and Habitat Policy of 1998. Both have emphasised increasing the supply of

urban housing and land, mainly by taking care of the supply side factors. In support of that,

Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation (ULCR) Act was repealed in 1999. Other policy changes

with regards to land are introduction of new land management practices, namely, public-private

partnerships for increasing land supply. In Mumbai, a new concept of Transfer of Development

Rights (TDR5) has been introduced to make land accessible for public purposes in those parts of

the city that do not have many vacant lands and where the land prices are high. Besides repealing

ULCR Act, other land deregulations have come. These are introduced through changes in

Development Control Regulations (DCRs) in some cities. For example, in Mumbai, the new

DCRs permit increase of Floor Space Index (FSI6) from 1.33 to 2.5 (Mahadevia 1998).

Relaxations of building bye-laws and zoning regulations have been introduced by taking

minimum penalty and granting indemnity to the violators of these regulations.

The Eighth Plan suggests that housing should be facilitated through removal in legal bottlenecks

in land and housing supply, and increase in formal sector financial flows to the housing sector. It

also implored increasing private sector participation in housing sector, especially for the

development of metropolitan fringe areas. Lastly, it proposed to increase the coverage of credit

for housing through links of formal and informal institutions, NGOs and community

organisations. In shelter programmes, the Urban Basic Services was converted into Urban Basic

Services for the Poor (UBSP) in 1992. The UBSP was discontinued in 1997. In place, National

8

Slum Development Programme (NSDP) was launched in 1996. This also was discontinued

subsequently and replaced by Valmiki Ambedkar Awaas Yojana (VAMBAY).

On the Independence Day on 2001, the Prime Minister of India announced a first-ever subsidy

based housing scheme for the urban slum dwellers worth Rs. 2,000 crores (Rs. 20 billion) and

named it VAMBAY. Half the funds were envisaged to come from the yearly subsidy and another

half from the Tenth Five Year Plan as loan. Expectedly, atleast 0.4 million (4 lakhs) of additional

housing for the poor were to be constructed by HUDCO every year. A component of this scheme

was a new sanitation programme called Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan aimed at providing toilet

facilities in the slums to be maintained by the slum dwellers themselves.

In 2005, the national government came up with its first major urban development programme

named the JNNURM, which has a sub-mission of BSUP, as already mentioned earlier. For the

non-mission cities, IHSDP programme is under implementation. The figures of the achievements

under the two programmes are already presented earlier.

While the JNNURM was being implemented, in 2007, the national government adopted a

National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (NUHHP). The core of the policy is provision of

“Affordable Housing For All” and increase in supply of the same through bringing more players

into the process, mainly the private sector developers. The policy is incentivising the these

private players to come into this low value low profit margin market to address the severe

housing shortages for the urban poor, especially in the wake of expected increased rate of

urbanisation. The private sector would not be engaged solely as the construction contractors, as

was the case with regards to the public housing till now but also as organisers and managers of

the projects, bringing in the land and finance and also keeping up high rate of construction while

the government would facilitate through various incentives. “This Policy seeks to assist the

poorest of poor who cannot afford to pay the entire price of a house by providing them access to

reasonably good housing on rental and ownership basis with suitable subsidization. The Policy

seeks to enhance the supply of houses especially for the disadvantaged, duly supplemented by

basic services.”

As far as finance is concerned, the Policy seeks to develop innovative financial instruments like

development of Mortgage Backed Securitization Market (RMBS) and Secondary Mortgage

Market. It also seeks to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in areas like integrated

development of housing and new township development. Most importantly, this Policy seeks to

emphasize appropriate fiscal concessions for housing and infrastructure. For example, it states

that it would support development of “suitable fiscal concessions in collaboration with the

Ministry of Finance for promotion of housing and urban infrastructure with special focus on

EWS/LIG beneficiaries combined with a monitoring mechanism for effective targeting. There is

9

also emphasis on use of appropriate technology for reducing the cost of construction. In essence,

it envisages that the demand for affordable housing is so large that finance of the tune mentioned

earlier in the paper would be required and for which new sources would have to be tapped.

The policy is based on the role of the government to be an enabler and a regulator and not a doer.

The policy therefore emphasises on a strong role of the private sector in creating new housing for

the urban poor. There is a great stress in the policy on Public Private Partnership (PPP). The

policy is in a way in tune with the privatisation philosophy of the JNNURM. The policy also lays

stress on creation of new housing, even for the low income households.

The Policy lays out the role of central government, the state government and the local

government in this endeavour. The role of the central government is envisaged as one of being a

facilitator, through encouraging legal reforms at the state government level and bringing about

national level policy changes. The role of the state government is envisaged as that of a direct

facilitator, who would, in coordination with the local government prepare state level housing and

habitat policy, act as facilitator for increasing housing supply by ensuring multiple partners

coming in, ensure suitable flow of financial resources to potential EWS/LIG beneficiaries as well

as undertake viability gap funding of large housing and habitat development projects, bring about

changes in legal and regulatory framework, promote PPP, encourage all community level efforts

of increasing housing supply, and promote in-situ upgradation of existing slums. For increasing

land supply, land management tools such as the TDR and increase in FSI/ FAR, have been

suggested. The states are expected to ensure development of new townships and Special

Economic Zones (SEZs), where new housing stock would be created.

Specific areas of Action are also given in the Policy. Some important ones, that are not already

stated above are listed here:

i) Land assembly, development and disposal will be encouraged both in the public and

private sectors.

ii) Private Sector will be allowed to assemble a reasonable size of land in consonance with

the Master Plan/Development Plan of each city/town.

iii) The feasibility of a National Shelter Fund to be set up under the control of the National

Housing Bank for providing subsidy support to EWS/LIG housing would be examined in

consultation with Ministry of Finance. The NHB will act as a refinance institution for the

housing sector.

iv) States/UTs will be advised to develop 10 years perspective Housing Plans with emphasis

on EWS and LIG sectors.

v) Special financial and spatial incentives would be developed for inner-city slum

redevelopment schemes.

10

vi) The Central and State/UT Governments would develop a special package of incentives

for in-situ slum upgradation.

vii) Rental housing provides a viable alternative option to the home seekers and the house

providers alike. Incentives are to be provided for encouraging lendings by financial

institutions, HFIs and Banks for rental housing. Also, Companies and Employers will be

encouraged to invest in the construction of rental housing for their employees.

viii) Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) would be promoted at State level to expedite the flow

of finance to urban poor. In this regard, suitable mechanisms would be evolved to

develop simplified norms for prudential rating and providing finance to MFIs. Adequate

regulation of MFIs would be undertaken to ensure that MFIs do not burden the poor by

charging usurious interest rates and their operations are kept transparent.

ix) Legal measures suggested are in tune with the provisions of the JNNURM.

There are large number of action areas suggested for slum improvement and upgradation, given

that the thrust of the ministry is to minimize rehabilitation:

i) To carry forward the initiatives taken up under the JNNURM, such as slum improvement

as well as in-situ slum rehabilitation along with provision of security of tenure,

affordable housing and basic services to the urban poor.

ii) Inner-city slum redevelopment programmes for creating a better environment, to be

encouraged with cross subsidization and special incentives.

iii) Land pooling and sharing arrangements to be encouraged in order to facilitate land

development and improvement of basic amenities in slums.

iv) To carefully consider the release of TDRs and additional FAR for accelerating private

investment in provision of shelter to the poor. CBOs, NGOs and Self-Help Groups

(SHGs) to be involved in partnership with the private sector.

v) To ensure that the shelter provision for the poor is near their present work place and that

non-transferable land tenure rights are provided to them for atleast a period of 10-15

years.

vi) Only in cases, where relocation is necessary on account of severe water pollution, safety

problems on account of proximity to rail track or other critical concerns relocation of

slum dwellers will be undertaken. In such cases, special efforts will be made to ensure

fast and reliable transportation to work sites.

Like most other developing countries, India has tried to promote social protection and equity in

tandem with economic development throughout all the national plans. However, urban poverty

as a concern in national planning found its roots in the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-1985) ¬

where for the first time the centrally-sponsored programme, Environmental Improvement of

Urban Slums (EIUS) was established to improve slum environment and for site and services

11

projects in several cities. Post 1990s, the push towards slum development and poverty alleviation

programmes, saw an upsurge in tandem with India’s exponentially growing urbanization, albeit,

the changes being cosmetic in nature. The urban governance framework encompassing

institutions, financial allocations, provision of basic services and infrastructure, etc., has seen a

shift towards decentralization and inclusive planning (Mathur 2009).

Added to this policy scenario is the more recent Rajiv Awaas Yojana (RAY) 2009, which is

putting forward the policy of giving property rights or tenure guarantee to the slum dwellers as a

critical element in shelter security. Studies on-going for appropriate guidelines to implement this

policy have thrown up critical issues like, community participation in - surveys, choice of land

tenure or development model, etc. Another point being emphasised in RAY discussions is the in-

situ development of slums; and in case a slum has to be rehabilitated, it should be within the

same ward. However, housing is still being treated as a commodity which is evident from the

fact that the Government has kept a caveat in the RAY guidelines that states can take the RAY

scheme provided lands, when it deems fit.

1.4 Introduction to research locales

Our research is focussed on assessing public housing programmes for the poor, focussing on the

JNNURM housing schemes currently being implemented across the country. Public housing at

such a large scale has never been implemented in India, thus the schemes already completed can

be studied through a critical assessment of pre and post housing conditions of the scheme

occupants. We decided to select Andhra Pradesh as our research locale keeping in mind that the

state has long established welfare traditions and also a long history of urban public housing

programmes. While undertaking this research on assessment of the BSUP of the JNNURM, we

decided to also assess other urban housing programmes as well to get a comprehensive

understanding of the efficacy of public housing programmes in the urban areas of the state.

In Andhra Pradesh (AP), the slum population is 38 per cent of the total urban population

(MoHUPA, 2010). The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has indicated that

there are 1,342 slums within Hyderabad, in which the non-notified slums have higher density of

population. Again, nearly 57 per cent of the slums are on private lands of which almost 80 per

cent slums date back more than 20 years (Adusumili 2001).

AP is the first Indian state to establish an organisation to work exclusively towards ‘housing for

all’ – the Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation Ltd. (APSHCL). Formed post-tsunami in

1979, APSHCL has been mandated with numerous housing programmes like INDIRAMMA in

1983; Indira Awas Yojna 2002-03 and Urban Permanent Housing 2006. Currently, the BSUP,

IHSDP, VAMBAY, Rajiv Gruha Kalpa (RGK), are being implemented by the APSHCL. On the

whole, the AP state government has implemented a slew of urban improvement programmes

12

over the years – Slum Clearance Scheme, Slum Improvement Programme, Environmental

Improvement Scheme, Housing Scheme for Urban Poor, Integrated Urban Development

Programme, Hyderabad Slum Improvement Project and the Urban Community Development

Programme.

The legislation supporting housing programmes in the state is the AP Slum Improvement

(Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956. It has facilitated the government to acquire land where the

slums were located and to carry our slum improvement activities. This Act along with the

popular Urban Community Development Programme (UCD) delivered nearly 20,000 ‘pattas’

(land tenure) and upgraded 12,000. Another measure promoting welfare action was the ‘land

sharing’ concept initiated in 1985, which let slum dwellers and land owners to use the privately

owned land as per a legal land sharing agreement. Thus Andhra Pradesh has since long had

established welfare measures, and successfully implemented many programmes for urban poor.

(Adusumilli 2001, CGG 2009)

The objective of this research is to assess the impact of the housing programmes for poor in

urban areas. Research on the resultant changes brought about in the physical quality of life of

slum dwellers, as well as the changes in their expenditure pattern with the change in their

housing conditions is the objective of the study. This study has obtained data on the

beneficiaries’ living conditions before and after the housing projects. The merit of this research

is that it brings on record such an analysis, and also brings out a comparative analysis of different

programmes to learn from them.

1.5 Methodology

The core concern of this research is to understand the status of public housing projects in Andhra

Pradesh. Based on the coverage of these programmes and also their stage of implementation, we

had selected a few programmes for detailed assessment. We selected the VAMBAY project

(VAMBAY has been subsumed with IHSDP currently), the Integrated Housing and Slum

Development Programme (IHSDP) and Rajiv Gruha Kalpa (former housing programme now

converged with the INDIRAMMA) schemes for detailed assessment. Table 3 gives the coverage

of the ongoing shelter programmes in the state in the middle of 2009.

The detailed assessment includes documenting the current stage of implementation of the

scheme in different locations in the state, conducting the Focussed Group Discussions (FGDs)

with the beneficiaries and then canvassing structured questionnaire survey to assess the success

of the programme. The structured questionnaire survey assesses whether there has been reported

gentrification of the schemes, status of basic services and infrastructure provision and the

concerns for rehabilitation.

13

Table 3: Shelter Programmes and their Coverage, Andhra Pradesh Scheme Cities covered Cities selected for assessment

VAMBAY Hyderabad, Vijaywada, Vishakhapatnam

Other municipal corporations Hyderabad

Rajiv Gruh

Kalpa

Anantpur, Chittoor, East Godavari, Karimnagar,

Guntoor, Khammam, Kurnool, Mehbubnagar,

Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Rangareddy,

Srikakulum, Vishakhapatnam, Warangal

Nalgonda

IHSDP All districts Nalgonda

BSUP Hyderabad, Vishkhapatnam, Vijaywada

Hyderabad (not occupied at the time of

survey). But, the site was visited and

general information was collected from

officials – not included in detailed

discussions in this paper

Of the municipal corporations where VAMBAY was implemented, we selected Hyderabad for

our study. In Hyderabad, two VAMBAY housing colonies have been taken up for assessment –

NTR Nagar in Yellamabanda and Nandanavanam in Kukatpalli. The slums were selected on the

following basis: the Yellamabanda slum cluster has three slums with about 2,400 households

(hh) – NTR Nagar (Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Nagar), PJR Nagar (P. Janardhan Reddy) and

Sikh Nagar. In PJR Nagar (1,000 hh), all the residents are rehabilitees from Jubilee hills; in Sikh

Nagar (700 hh) all the residents belong to the Sikh community, and NTR Nagar (700 hh) is

mixed colony of rehabilitees from various locations of the city as well as of those who had

applied for new housing to the APHSLC. Since the NTR Nagar site is of mixed allotment, this

site has been selected as a sample for the study. Nadanavanam was selected as this site is large

with 328 households. In short, assessment of VAMBAY is based on sample drawn from NTR

Nagar of Yellamabanda and Nandanavanam (Table 4).

Table 4: Sample Selection for Current Research

Programme City Site Dwelling Units completed

Sample

VAMBAY Hyderabad NTR Nagar, Yellamabanda 328 67 Nandanavanam, Kukatpalli 700 72

BSUP Hyderabad` Charlapally 1,200 5 Rajiv Gruha Kalpa Nalgonda Mamillaguda 192 49

IHSDP Nalgonda Pangal (in-situ development) 184 54 Mamillaguda (relocation) 194 23

For all other programmes, we have surveyed only the households who had occupied the new

housing. To be able to do so, we had visited all large housing sites in the cities selected for the

research. We will like to put on record that Andhra Pradesh was reeling under severe floods in

the period of our survey. For BSUP, we selected Hyderabad. But, here we found that only 5

14

households had occupied the housing in 2009 when we had visited them. Thus, we could not

undertake any survey here but held discussions with them. We selected Nalgonda for assessing

Rajiv Gruha Kalpa (RGK), where 196 houses were allotted but only 49 were occupied in

Mamillaguda site. We selected all 49 households for our survey. For IHSDP also, we selected

Nalgonda. IHSDP programme in Nalgonda has two sites; one which is a relocation site where

194 units have been constructed and two, which is an in-situ development where 184 units have

been constructed. The former site is at Mamillaguda and the latter at Pangal. At Pangal there are

three settlements, Chaitanyanagar, Sri Krishnanagar and Pangal and we have selected the last

one (Table 4).

Comparative analysis of all the housing programmes has been carried out, assessing their current

living conditions against their former housing (prior to shifting to a new public housing unit).

The living conditions assessed include housing condition, availability of basic services, access to

social infrastructure and access to work. The main criteria for assessment are:

Availability of basic services and infrastructure: All the housing schemes are efforts towards

providing housing and basic infrastructure to all urban BPL families. In this light, the current

study is an attempt to analyze the coverage of beneficiaries under different components of the

programme.

Housing quality: It is not enough to alone provide housing and environmental infrastructure –

the construction materials, size of the unit, living environment, etc., should contribute towards

better living standards.

Expenditure pattern: Availability of basic services and transportation, distance to city centre,

workplace, community centre (markets), etc., impacts the expenses of a household. The change

in the expenses of a household is a direct indicator of the changes brought about by the housing

conditions. Thus, the household expenditure pattern is analysed to gauge the impact the housing

programme has brought about for the communities.

2 Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojna (VAMBAY)

Since the launch of BSUP under JNNURM in 2005, VAMBAY in Andhra Pradesh has been

subsumed under it, along with other existing programmes such as National Slum Development

Programme (NSDP) and Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojna (SJSRY) to ensure an integrated

provision of drinking water, sanitation and drainage facilities along with housing. VAMBAY

envisages redevelopment of existing slums and also relocation of slums. VAMBAY

simultaneously had the component of community toilets under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA)

aimed at providing health services and an enabling urban environment. Nearly, 20 per cent of the

15

total allocation under VAMBAY was to be provided for sanitation and community toilets were to

be built for the urban poor and slum dwellers. (MoHUPA7)

By 2006, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) completed more than 33,000

dwelling units along with infrastructure and basic service provision. However, unlike the costing

figures presented in the guidelines from MHUPA, GHMC applied revised costs per unit for

Hyderabad. The Rs. 2.67 lakhs cost per unit as proposed by GHMC was composed of

contributions of 50 per cent by the Government of India (GoI); 20 per cent from the Government

of Andhra Pradesh; 20 per cent from bank loan to the beneficiary and 10 per cent as down

payment by the beneficiary. However, this financial proposal was rejected by the GoI and thus,

GHMC cancelled more than 27,379 units. The increasing cost of providing infrastructure and

housing both has made it difficult for the GHMC to meet the targets set as well as maintain the

quality of construction.

Table 5: Status of VAMBAY in Andhra Pradesh Allocation and physical progress Housing Toilets

Cumulative allocation (GoI subsidy in Rs. lakhs) 10,646

GoI subsidy released (in Rs. Lakhs) 22,867 57

Units sanctioned 99,190 392

Physical Progress – Completed up till December 2006 63,644 138

Source: Data from GHMC officials. 2009

2.1 Project locales

The two project locations selected are: NTR Nagar and Nandanavanam in Hyderabad. Majority

of the residents are living in NTR Nagar since 2002-2003. Some residents are project-affected

people (PAP) – households relocated from Lakdi-ka-pul due to the new Master Plan proposal of

Multi-Modal Transport System (MMTS) train route. Others are relocated from Amirpet – the

quarters of the employees in JJ Government Mental Hospital which were demolished and the

residents were relocated to NTR Nagar. The rest of the households in NTR Nagar are formally

registered allottees under VAMBAY scheme. NTR Nagar is a mixed allotment of people of 700

families with a higher concentration of Hindus, who comprise about half of the occupants.

Average family size in NTR Nagar is 5.5. Almost 50 per cent of the surveyed households fall

within the income bracket of Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000 per month; averaging at an income of

around Rs.7,000 per month. Many of the households are regular job holders at JJ Government

Mental Hospital, Amirpet; remaining residents are construction labour or vendors. Nearly 40 per

cent of the surveyed households migrated to Hyderabad between 5 to 10 years ago. Primary

survey showed that the composition of households in this VAMBAY settlement today stands as

thus – about 60 per cent of allottees have rented out their houses, while about 5 per cent have

sold out their allotted houses; the remaining 35 per cent allottees are continuing to stay here.

16

In the other site, Nandanavanam, Uppal, most of households have been relocated from around

Hyderabad Municipal Corporation – Musarambag near Musi river, Uppal, Champapet, Ajumpur,

Chandarghat, Ramtanpuram, and Pedda Kottapalli. The slum dwellers of Nadanavanam are

predominantly Hindus (80 per cent) of scheduled caste (50 per cent). The household has an

average of 4-5 members and the maximum education level is up to senior secondary level.

Nearly 54 per cent of the surveyed households fall within the income category of Rs.1,500 to

Rs.5,000, averaging at Rs. 3000 per month. The residents are primarily engaged as labour in

construction work, as taxi drivers, auto drivers, while some are regular job holders. Nearly 37 per

cent of the surveyed households migrated to Hyderabad city less than 5 years ago, while 30 per

cent households reported to have migrated more than 10 years ago. Currently the composition of

the households in Nandanavanam is as follows: around 30 per cent of the houses were rented out,

15 per cent were sold out for a price range of Rs 100,000 to Rs.250,000 and about 55 per cent of

the residents here are the original allottees.

People started shifting into Nandanavanam in about 2004 and the process is still on-going. None

of the allottees are satisfied with the housing scheme – when it was opened in 2004, the colony

did not have basic facilities of electricity, water connection and drainage. It was reported that the

officials promised to put up permanent facilities once all the houses were occupied. It has taken

many years to convince people to claim their dwelling units in this colony because of the lack of

basic services.

2.2 Status of case-study sites: VAMBAY

2.2.1 Availability of basic services

In NTR Nagar, individual water supply was reported to cover 100 per cent of slum households

(Table 6). However, water connection provision was completed only in 2008, while the

settlement had started populating nearly 7-8 years ago, in 2003. Individual toilets and sewerage

line have been provided under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). However, the availability of

both, individual toilets and sewerage lines, have not solved the issue of sanitation in NTR Nagar.

The sewerage lines breaks or clogs frequently. The storm-water drains remain clogged and over

flow onto the streets, creating a very unhealthy environment. Contrary to their older housing, in

NTR Nagar nearly 99 per cent households have reported non-availability of solid waste disposal

service. The Municipal Corporation (that is the GHMC) has remained indifferent to such issues.

Residents here feel their peripheral location is the reason behind the GHMC’s apathy towards

garbage collection from this site. All maintenance issues have to be looked after by individual

households themselves.

In Nandanavanam, individual water supply was reported to cover 90 per cent of the surveyed

households. Before shifting into the VAMBAY colony almost 66 per cent of the households did

not have access to individual water connection. Within this scheme, 100 per cent households

17

have individual toilets. Almost 65 per cent of the households did not have access to individual

toilets in their previous housing. Sewerage line connection is available to all households in

VAMBAY housing. Coverage of sewerage line and storm water drainage is throughout the

settlement. However, the construction of these lines has been very slow because of which many

of the original allottees are apprehensive of shifting into Nadanavanam. No service has been

provided for solid waste management within the colony. There are numerous reported cases of

allottees selling their houses. In 2006, two years after completion of the colony, out of the 96

houses only 30 were occupied. Thereafter, people have very slowly trickled in but are very

unhappy with the basic services provided here.

Table 6: Availability of Basic Services (% of hh) Basic Services available to HHs

(in %)

NTR Nagar Nandanavanam

Previous

Housing

VAMBAY Housing Previous Housing VAMBAY

Housing

Individual Water Supply 78 100 21 90

Individual toilets 90 100 35 100

Sewerage Line 90 96 22 96

Storm water Drainage 87 89 25 100

Solid Waste Management 14 0 N.A.* 0

* Data not available

2.2.2 Availability of Physical and Social infrastructure

In NTR Nagar, VAMBAY scheme provided roads, street lighting and electricity; more than 95

per cent of the surveyed households reported availability of all three facilities (Table 7).

However, the street lights do not work many a times and the roads get inundated with drainage

water. Likewise, in Nandanavanam, physical infrastructure provision has been confirmed by 100

per cent households for roads, street lights and electricity.

Table 7: Availability of Physical Infrastructure (hh in %) Physical Infrastructure available to

HHs (in %)

NTR Nagar Nandanavanam

Previous

Housing

VAMBAY Housing Previous Housing VAMBAY

Housing

Road 41 94 93 100

Street lighting 46 96 93 99

Electricity 31 97 93 100

In terms of social infrastructure, 51 per cent households surveyed in NTR Nagar reported

accessing private hospitals and 39 per cent of the households accessed the Primary Health Centre

(PHC). Very few people access government hospitals as there are no PHC or any hospital for at

least 7-8 km. from this site. Even the most basic medical shop is about 5 km. away. Further, 78

per cent households access both primary and secondary schooling for their children in this

18

settlement. However, children have to travel at least 5 km. for both primary and secondary

schools. In fact, many children have to travel nearly 8 km for their secondary schools in the city.

Nandavanam lacks schools, hospitals, PHCs or community centres around the colony. A hospital

construction just started in 2009. One has to travel at least 3 km. to the nearest bus stop or

community centre. The community can at best afford the government hospitals, with almost 69

per cent households accessing the same for their medical requirements. In general, the residents

of this colony have to travel nearly 8 to 10 km to the city for government facilities.

2.2.3 Quality of housing

All households in NTR Nagar have been built with permanent materials (brick walls, RCC roofs,

tiled floor). However, in spite of the permanency of the material, the overall quality of the

buildings is very poor. Rains and daily wear and tear has already started reducing the buildings

to a state of dilapidation. Nearly 80 per cent of households surveyed in NTR Nagar have 1 room-

dwelling unit (Table 8). NTR Nagar has an average family size of 5.5 members so nearly 20 per

cent households have built extra rooms on their own. As per the scheme, construction each unit

was designed with only 1 room. Before shifting to NTR Nagar, almost 40 per cent of the

surveyed households had three or more rooms per dwelling unit, while they received only 1 room

per family on the rehabilitation site. Almost 82 per cent families have reported availability of

separate kitchen in NTR Nagar. This is again a disadvantage for the community because in their

previous house.

All housing units in Nandanavanam have been constructed with permanent materials. Unlike

NTR Nagar all the houses have 2 rooms with separate kitchen. Nearly 66 per cent of the

surveyed households formerly lived in one-room units and hence, for these households,

VAMBAY has improved their housing condition.

Table 8: Status of Housing Structure (hh%) Housing structure available to HHs

(in %)

NTR Nagar Nandanavanam

Previous

Housing

VAMBAY Housing Previous Housing VAMBAY

Housing

1 room 38 80 66 1

2 rooms 23 15 16 98

3 rooms 11 4 7 0

More than 3 rooms 28 0 3 0

Separate Kitchen 93 87 21 97

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Figure 2-1: VAMBAY Housing, Nandanavanam and Schematic design of Unit*

*Unit design as per as per AP State Housing Corporation

2.2.4 Expenditure Pattern

The expenditure pattern has been reported to have under gone an increase for most families in

NTR Nagar. The average increase in expenses per household across the community is found to

be almost of 38 per cent as against their expenditure in their older housing conditions (Table 9).

Average transportation expense per household has increased by nearly 65 per cent. The highest

increase is seen in electricity expenditure, which indicates use of more use of electrical

appliances than before as well as metered energy bill collections post-resettlement. Most of the

households also feel that their medical expenses have increased, more than 20 per cent than in

their previous locality, because they are currently staying in a very unhealthy environment in

NTR Nagar. The drainage system is out of order. Waste water flows out into the streets,

sewerage lines are not linked and they have to frequently face medical expenses.

Table 9: Change in Average Expenditure for Different Items, NTR Nagar Expenditure Expenditure in

Previous Housing

(in Rs.)

% share of

expenditure to

total

Expenditure in

VAMBAY Housing

(in Rs.)

% share of

expenditure

to total

% increase in

expenditure due to

relocation

Food 1,397 53 1,827 50 31

Education 456 17 629 17 38

Medical 277 11 340 9 23

Electricity 130 5 229 6 76

Transportation 363 14 600 17 65

Total 2,623 100 3,625 100 38

It is to be noted that although most other expenditures remain the same for the community with

the change of their housing location, their expenses on transportation has increased by 3 per cent,

while food and medical expenses decreased at a similar rate.

From discussions it was revealed that relocation to the city periphery has imposed numerous

problems upon the community’s daily life in NTR Nagar. Majority of surveyed households (61

20

per cent) travelled more than 10 km to their workplace daily; unlike their previous housing

location, from where only 18 per cent families were travelling this distance (Table 10).

Simultaneously, from their previous housing nearly 51 households were travelling less than 5

km., while from NTR Nagar only13 per cent families have this convenience.

Table 10: Distance travelled to work-place (% of hh), NTR Nagar

Distance to work-place Previous Housing VAMBAY Housing

Less than 5 km 51 13

5 to 10 km 31 25

More than 10 km 18 61

In Nandanvanam, on an average, it is seen that households have an increase in overall expenses

by 33 per cent (Table 11). The expense on transportation has seen the next highest raise, that of

47 per cent. This is the most expected item contributing to increased expenditure in

Nandanavanam. This is due to the location of Nadanavanam colony nearly 15 km away from city

centre. Nearly 55 per cent of the surveyed households have reported that they have to travel

anywhere between 5 to 10 km for their jobs. In fact, 18 per cent households in the survey report

that they travel more than 10 km for their daily work.

Table 11: Change in the Average Expenditure on Select Items, Nandanavanam Items Previous

housing

(in Rs.)

% of total

expenditure

VAMBAY

Housing (in

Rs.)

% of total

expenditure

Increase in average

expenditure

(in %)

Food 1,342 51 1,652 47 23

Education 275 10 533 15 94

Medical 426 16 510 15 20

Electricity 170 6 181 5 6

Transportation 433 16 635 18 47

Total 2,646 1 3,511 1 33

2.3 VAMBAY performance in Andhra Pradesh

VAMBAY, envisioned as an answer to housing issues in India, has been disappointing. Andhra

Pradesh, one of the fore-runners in social welfare has been unable to implement and realize the

main objective of VAMBAY – housing for all BPL families in urban areas. News reports claim

VAMBAY implementation to be rife with issues such as non-transparent beneficiary selection,

non-allotment of housing to selected beneficiaries, incomplete services, non-existent social

infrastructure, etc. The allottees have been reported to be staying in incomplete houses, at times

in temporary accommodations in spite of their VAMBAY units being complete. Reports have

also mentioned that the allottees have refused to move to their VAMBAY housing because of

their peripheral locations in areas not served by public transport.

21

Box 1. VAMBAY in the News

HYDERABAD: “Sangaiah’s face is inscrutable. The old man does not know whether to laugh or cry.

Decades after living in a shanty, his dream of living in a modern dwelling is coming true. But, it does not

look much different from his old home! And to think that his small flat in a building of 23 other one-room

tenements was constructed under the Centre-sponsored ‘Valmiki Ambedkar Awaas Yojana’ (Vambay) by

the Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation Limited! The building at Netajinagar in Musheerabad was

supposed to be ready for inauguration for the last one year though it is difficult to see how. It has the

hallmark of a poor construction supervised by an apathetic district administration with awful finish, bad

cement work, ramshackle doors, dank interiors and no water or sewerage connection with pipes already

giving way.“I have been living here in a slum for four decades. They took four years to build this and

everyone can see what they have done,” says Sangaiah giving a wry smile. He and all beneficiaries are

from weaker sections.”

The Hindu, Thursday Feb 07, 2008

HYDERABAD: “Beneficiaries of Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (Vambay) on Wednesday took

possession of their house units at Kukatpally Allwyn Colony, amidst allegations that the district

administration was ‘slowing down’ the process of giving ‘ownership’ rights to them. Over 300

beneficiaries, mostly women from weaker sections, welcomed State Bharatiya Janata Party president

Bandaru Dattatreya, who performed Pooja before they took possession of the houses. They said there

were 700 families, which were yet to receive fully constructed houses under the scheme. “For one year,

we have been fighting to occupy our allotted houses. They are intentionally delaying the allotment,”

argued 80-year-old Kantamma, a resident of Indiranagar. Initially, the scheme promised to provide shelter

to all the 1,120 families of this colony.

Under the scheme, 1,100 house units were sanctioned out of which only 330 units were constructed while

the remaining units are at various stages of completion. The district administration had not made any

arrangements to provide basic amenities like roads, water supply, drainage and electricity here. “We paid

Rs. 6,110 in 2003 in addition to Rs. 250 per month to the bank for the home loan. Despite this, the

administration has not constructed our houses. We have decided to live here and fight for our rights,” said

P. Savithri.”

The Hindu, Thursday Nov 1, 2007

In the case-study VAMBAY colonies of NTR Nagar and Nandanavanam in GHMC, it took a

long time to convince the people to shift their houses to the new locations. Even now many of

the allottee households are still living in their previous housing and do not want to shift mainly

because of the distance of these locations from the city activity centre. Only 35 per cent

households in NTR Nagar and 55 per cent in households in Nandanvanam are the original

allottees, and the rest are either new tenants or new buyers of the housing units. This means that

the remaining allottee households continue to live in their former housing or in other locations in

the city. Among the allottees, as high as 60 per cent in NTR Nagar and 30 per cent in

22

Nandanvanam have rented out their houses. Those who have sold out have made about Rs. 1 to 2

lakhs and are back to their original slum locations within the city.

The core concern in shelter security is not only about providing a dwelling unit. Housing

provided away from the place of work and without social infrastructure can never sustain a

community. As seen from the case-studies, more than 50 per cent households travel out more

than 5 km. daily for work. Both NTR Nagar and Nandanvanam have no dedicated social

infrastructure for such huge populations. For schooling, medical attention and day to day needs –

both communities have to travel into the city, which is about 10-15 km away.

At the same time, the survey shows that the availability of physical services such as water

supply, sewerage, storm water drainage, roads, street lights and electricity has improved. The

peripheral location has negatively impacted solid waste management service. The households

have gained with regards to availability of the physical services but the maintenance of the basic

services, in spite of their provision by the Corporation, still remains a big concern in the

VAMBAY settlements. The storm water drains are not paved and hence the water flows out onto

the streets. The sewerage drains get blocked often. It is not enough to just provide the service

infrastructure; without maintenance by the local authority any new housing scheme is more

likely than not to be relegated to slum-like condition. India has in fact seen enormous resources

in such schemes go to waste because of lack of maintenance. Providing toilets without efficient

connectivity with sewerage lines; unpaved storm water drainage system; unpaved approach

roads; lack of street lights, etc.– all such discrepancies in a housing scheme eventually leads to

the formation of a slum.

The third issue is that the households were living in larger houses with more number of rooms in

a slum prior to their rehabilitation in a VAMBAY unit. Across the board, the housing unit size

has declined for majority of the households.

However, failure of schemes is not a one-sided story. As found from this study, the top-down

approach towards such programmes makes them inflexible and accommodative of the

community’s own needs and aspirations. GHMC had proposed for a revised financial plan for

the dwelling units – but it was rejected by the central government. The unit cost decided during

the inception of the VAMBAY scheme, is outdated and needs to be revised. As per revised rates,

GHMC proposed the units to cost Rs. 2.67 lakhs, instead of Rs. 60,000 as conceived during the

programme inception. Any construction calculation basics can prove the validity of GHMC’s

revised costs. Yet, this proposal was rejected and GHMC has decided to ground thousands of

proposed dwelling units. Such bureaucratic obstacles are rampant in the implementation of

programmes in India. This shows that when the government decides to provide a fully

constructed house, the cost goes above the affordable limits, not only of the households but also

23

of the implementing authority. In other studies of EWS public housing, it has been found that the

private contractors do not come forward to construct such dwelling units because the Schedule of

Rates (SORs) are lower than what the market costs of construction materials. In essence, the

entire financing of such shelter programmes need to be re-assessed given that the construction

materials’ costs have been increasing and would continue to increase if India is to have high

economic growth rates.

3 Rajiv Gruha Kalpa (RGK)

The VAMBAY Housing Project as well as the Indiramma Urban Permanent Housing Scheme

could not meet the housing demands existing in the cities of Andhra Pradesh, which led to the

initiation of a new urban housing scheme, Rajiv Gruha Kalpa8 (RGK). It envisioned the

construction of 2 lakh housing units in 2005-2006 for the EWS and LIG classes, with 100,000

houses in Hyderabad agglomeration area alone. Hyderabad was to have 14 projects, and two in

Ranga Reddy district. The ownership of the dwelling unit was to be transferred to the beneficiary

at the end of the 20-year loan period.9

This scheme was grounded in 2006-2007 and only four of the 16 sanctioned projects have been

completed to some degree and handed over to the beneficiaries. The remaining proposed

projects under the programme RGK were merged with the INDIRAMMA programme. In the

lines of RGK, another affordable housing project was initiated by the Government of AP as

Rajiv Swagruha Kalpa in 2007. However, our analysis for this paper is of RGK housing site at

Nalgonda. As of 2009, RGK scheme has sanctioned 23,650 housing units. Of these, 17,168

dwelling units have been allotted, and 15,426 have been completely handed over to the allottees.

3.1 Project locales

For this study, RGK scheme in Mammillaguda, Nalgonda district was selected for analysis.

Nalgonda has a population of 3.24 lakhs of which 13.32 per cent is urban and occupy an area of

14,240 sq. km. as per the 2001 Census. The RGK programme is functioning in 5 divisions of

Nalgonda district: Nalgonda (Urban), Nalgonda (Rural), Suryapet, Bhongir and Miryalguda.

Nalgonda city has allotted and completed 336 dwelling units of which only 196 (58 per cent)

have been actually handed over10. Of the 196 units, only 49 houses (25 per cent of the actual

allotment and 14.5 per cent of the total constructed) have been occupied as of now and a

household survey was conducted in all of them. The beneficiaries in this site have been relocated

from Bottuguda, Rangioil, Ravindranagar, Santinagar, Charllapalli, Pangal and R.P.Road of

Nalgonda city. The beneficiaries are primarily from the EWS class, previously residing in slums

or rental housing. All the beneficiaries had to submit an application for RGK housing. Later all

the received applications were verified by the implementing agency APSHCL, thereafter the

24

final list of beneficiaries were selected. The allotment is by a lottery system after the final list of

beneficiaries is fixed.

The scheme housing costs Rs. 84,500 per dwelling unit, for which each household has given a

down payments of Rs.6,500 and received loan amount of Rs. 84,500, to be repaid over 20 years

period. Each block has received loan sanction from different banks like Andhra Bank, Indian

Overseas Bank, Canara Bank, SBI etc. Nearly, 45 per cent of the families now living in the RGK

Scheme housing have shifted in since 2007-2008, while the rest of the households are less than 1

year old in this colony. Almost 50 per cent male members in the slum are self-employed as

tailors, auto drivers, etc and 38 per cent are occupied as daily wage labour. Very few are

employed in regular jobs, as peons, hospital boys, in the municipality as cleaners, etc. Nearly 50

per cent families have 4-member households. Nearly, 49 per cent households earn less than Rs.

5,000 per month, averaging around Rs. 4,500 per month.

3.2 Status of case-study site: RGK

3.2.1 Availability of Basic Services

All the households in Mamillaguda have reported the availability of the basic services –

individual water supply, individual toilets, sewerage line and storm water drainage, albeit with

maintenance problems. On comparing with their previous housing conditions, it was found that

these households already had all these basic services even in their previous housing.

Table 12: Coverage of households by Basic Services under RGK Scheme (% of hh)

Items Previous housing RGK Housing Scheme

Available Not Available Available Not Available

Individual water supply 90 10 100 0

Individual toilets 98 2 100 0

Sewerage line 98 2 100 0

Storm water drainage 80 20 72 23

Solid waste management 29 71 0 100

Previously, nearly 90 per cent of the households, especially the ones in rental housing, have

reported having access to individual water connections in their rental housing. Sewerage line and

storm water drainage has been provided in this slum but due to their defective construction,

many households were not able to dispose their sewerage waste into these drains. Solid waste

management has been a problem area. The Nalgonda Municipality has not assigned any

scheduled garbage collection in the RGK colony. Residents complain that they are neglected by

the Municipality and any complaints regarding the maintenance of the facilities are not heeded to

on a timely manner.

25

3.2.2 Availability of Physical Infrastructure

In the RGK Scheme housing, the availability of physical infrastructure is poorer than

VAMBAY’s. Non-availability of proper roads and street lights has posed serious personal safety

concerns in the colony. In comparison to their previous housing, the physical infrastructure is

worse in Mamillaguda. This has been one of the biggest impediments in populating the colony

since its opening.

Table 13: Coverage of Households by Physical Infrastructure (% of hh)

Infrastructure Previous Housing RGK Housing

Available Not Available Available Not Available

Roads 100 0 12 88

Street lights 84 16 6 94

Electricity 96 4 98 2

Other than electricity provision which is available to nearly 98 per cent of the households,

infrastructure is in a poor state. In their previous housing, 100 per cent of the RGK colony

residents had access to paved roads, now only 12 per cent families have reported the availability

of some roads (Table 13). This brings out the lack of access roads within the colony. Again, in

terms of street lights, only 6 per cent families have reported the availability of streetlights in the

colony. For most of the residents now living here, life has deteriorated in terms of security and

quality of living environment.

3.2.3 Availability of Social Infrastructure

There is not much in the name of social infrastructure or networks. There are no schools in the

area; only one anganwadi. There are no hospitals around the colony – they have to travel at least

5 to 8 km. for a school or hospital. There are no community centres either. So even for their daily

requirements, they have to travel into the city. They are happy that at least the site plan is such

that they have open spaces around the colony.

3.2.4 Housing Quality

The housing quality in RGK housing is comparatively better than in the former housing of these

residents. In their previous house, more than 50 per cent households had only one-room dwelling

units. Currently, every family has two-room dwelling units with separate kitchen. House

construction is with permanent materials. All dwelling units have brick walls, RCC roofs and

wooden doors and windows. Nearly 74 per cent households reported tiled floors, while the rest

have cemented floors. Many families reported that when they shifted into the house, doors and

windows were missing and they had to spend out of their own pockets to fix them.

26

Figure 3-1: RGK Housing in Mamillaguda and Schematic plan*

*From the AP State Housing Corporation

3.2.5 Expenditure pattern

In Mamillaguda, the expenditure increased considerably for most households on all the items of

consumption. On the whole, total expenditure has increased by almost 51 per cent (Table 14).

The maximum increase in expenditure has been in education (132 per cent), followed by

transport (81 per cent). It is likely that on shifting to city’s periphery the households have shifted

their children to another school in the new neighbourhood. It appears that the new school in the

neighbourhood is a private school whereas the previous school was a public school, thereby

increasing the cost of education. Distance to all other activities, work place and other social

facilities seems to have increased, which has resulted in such drastic increase in transport

expenditure as compared to what they were incurring in their previous locations. In short, the

households have seen such increased expenses mostly due to the lack of supporting infrastructure

to the community as well as their location away from all other social infrastructure like school,

hospital, community centre or market, etc.

Table 14: Change in Average Expenditure per Household

Expenditure

items

Average expenditure

(Rs.) in previous

housing

% share to

total

Average expenditure

(Rs.) in RGK Housing

% share to

total

Change in

expenditure (%)

Food 1,275 66 1,740 60 36

Education 221 11 512 18 132

Medical 218 11 318 11 46

Transport 120 6 217 7 81

Electricity 99 5 126 4 27

Total 1,933 1 2,913 1 51

Compared to their older location, households have reported that more families have to travel

more than 5 km. for work (Table 15). Prior to shifting to the RGK scheme, almost 55 per cent of

27

the current residents of RGK were residing in the city centre. They had minimal transport

expenses to bear, and school, market, hospital were all within walking distance.

Table 15: Distance to be travelled to the City Centre (% of hh)

Distance to City Centre Previous Housing RGK Housing

1 to 5 km 44 85

5 to 10 km 0 15

More than 10 km 0 0

Residence at City Centre 55 0

Although decongesting the city centre from slum housing is desirable for greater public good,

relocating the low-income households to neighbourhoods lacking in social and physical

infrastructure as well as safety and security indicates lack of understanding of the needs of low

income residents. It also shows apathy of the planners with regards to the urban poor. In the new

location the households’ expenditure have increased to almost double of what they were

incurring in their previous housing location.

3.2.6 Rajiv Gruha Kalpa performance in Andhra Pradesh

RGK’s target of providing 2 lakh housing units for the EWS and LIG has not been met as

envisaged. Only 332 houses were completed in 2008-09, of which only 49 dwelling units have

been occupied. This fails RGK’s vision of providing housing as an answer to the exponential

growth of population in nine districts in and around Hyderabad. Unlike VAMBAY which has the

basic infrastructure in place, RGK has poor infrastructure provision. The scheme has been

reported as a failure from other RGK sites as well3.

Box 2. Rajiv Gruha Kalpa in the News

HYDERABAD “An apology for housing, the much-vaunted urban housing project for the poor at Nizampet under the Rajiv Gruha Kalpa scheme fails miserably in its purpose. To put in the words of an occupant, the houses are “a mockery of our helplessness, because unless for poverty, nobody would have accepted them in their present state”. Though inaugurated five months ago, the complex lacks in everything that is fundamental for a house to be called a house. “There is no water, nor is there drainage connection. Despite having toilets, we are forced to wait till sunset to defecate in open by the lakeside where we are exposed to perils such as snakebites or attacks from outsiders. “How can I have my young daughter going out in search of loo sites at 10 p.m.?” questions G. Kavitha, a resident. Worse is the situation when it comes to daily ablutions. Warned by the officials not to use the toilets till their approval, the residents brush, wash clothes and utensils, and even bathe downstairs in open.”

The Hindu, Friday July 24, 2009

3 Swathi.V, Rajiv Gruha Kalpa: an apology for housing! The Hindu, 24 July 2009, accessed on 3 Dec 2010

(http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/24/stories/2009072459020300.htm)

28

In Mamillaguda, basic infrastructure like road and street-lights are missing even 2 to 3 years

after residents have started living in the colony. In such a case, it is understandable that allottees

would prefer not shifting in, even after they received legal ownership of the house. From

discussions with the residents, it was found that nearly 75 per cent of the allotted houses have

been rented out or are still empty. The primary survey revealed that nearly 46 per cent

households living in the colony are tenants paying rent to the original allottees.

The other problem with the RGK is that the projects are outside the city limits and the

households have been forced to incur more expenditures than earlier on transportation for

various needs. Further, it appears that the families had to put their children in new schools

nearby, and which seem to be more expensive than their earlier schools. In all, the overall cost of

living has gone up for the families that have shifted to the new housing. In short, the residents’

feedback of the households on RGK is not very good.

4 Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP)

Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme4 aims at combining the existing schemes

of VAMBAY and NSDP under the new IHSDP Scheme for having an integrated approach in

ameliorating the conditions of the urban slum dwellers who do not possess adequate shelter and

reside in dilapidated conditions. The scheme is applicable to all cities and towns as per 2001

Census except cities and towns covered under the JNNURM. The scheme seems to enhance

public and private investments in housing and infrastructural development in urban areas.

In Andhra Pradesh, the INDIRAMMA Housing was merged with IHSDP programme. The state

government has designated and notified APSHCL as implementing agency for IHSDP scheme

from 2006. The basic objective of the scheme is to strive for holistic slum development with a

healthy and enabling urban environment by providing adequate shelter and basic infrastructure

facilities to the slum dwellers of the identified urban areas.

In 2006, as per Municipal records development of 4 slums in Nalgonda was approved, at a cost

of Rs. 3.37 crores. The total units to be built was proposed at 378, in four slums of which 194

would be for the relocated community in Mamillaguda, while 184 units are to be redeveloped in-

situ in the slum group of Sri Krishna Nagar, Chaitanya Nagar and Pangal. As per municipality

records, 126 units are completed, while the remaining 252 are all at various stages of completion.

4 More details about IHSDP can be accessed on the Government website

(http://housing.cgg.gov.in/schemes/IHSDP_Urban.html and https://jnnurmmis.nic.in/jnnurm_hupa/index.html)

29

4.1 Project locales

The group of communities selected for the IHSDP in-situ development are Krishna Nagar,

Chaitanya Nagar and Pangal (together called Pangal). From all the settlements, a total of 52

households were surveyed for assessment. All the residents surveyed are the original allottees,

currently living in the scheme housing. Nearly 70 per cent households fall below the income

range of Rs. 5,000 per month. More than 50 per cent of the household head are employed as

daily wage earners, while about 30 per cent are self employed; the remaining 15 per cent are

regular salaried employees. The in-situ redevelopment in Pangal was completed in 2009. Being

an in-situ development, the IHSDP scheme for this locality provided a mix of infrastructure,

basic services and dwelling units, as per requirement. Beneficiaries paid different amounts as per

the scheme allocations – between Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 73,000, as evident from the household

survey. Being a participatory project, nearly 40 per cent of the households reported to have built

their homes by themselves, with the government’s contribution of funds and subsidized building

materials. There was no loan component for this redevelopment. The APSHCL disbursed the

funds for only home improvement to those who had land. Funds were not given for construction

of toilets and hence most households made their own investments to add sanitation and washing

areas as well as other requirements to their two-roomed accommodation constructed by

themselves. Nearly 95 per cent households have reported spending between Rs. 50,000 to Rs.

300,000 from their own pockets on their individual dwelling units.

The other IHSDP colony surveyed is in Mamillaguda near the RGK about 3 to 4 km distance

from the city centre. The colony has about 176 households, of which 23 households were

surveyed for this study. Most residents here are from the surrounding areas of Shivaji Nagar,

Boiwada, BTS and Padmavathi colony. All the residents surveyed are the original allottees, and

renting out houses is not common. Nearly 82 per cent households fall below the income range of

Rs. 3,000 per month. More than 50 per cent of the households are daily wage earners, while

about 35 per cent are self employed; the remaining few are regular salaried employees. Most of

the households shifted into this colony in the last 1 to 3 years. The units have cost an amount of

Rs. 40,000, for which the selected beneficiaries have made down payments of Rs. 3,300. The

APSHCL has granted the loan of Rs. 35,000 to the households, for a repayment period of Rs. 15

years. Toilets were not build as part of this scheme, so most people have made their own

investments to add sanitation and washing areas as well as other requirements to their two-

roomed accommodations. Nearly 95 per cent households have reported spending between Rs. 1,

60,000 to Rs. 200,000 on their individual dwelling units.

30

4.2 Status of case-study sites: IHSDP

4.2.1 Availability of Basic Services

The comparative analysis of situation before and after the in-situ development enumerates a

better standard of living environment for the slum dwellers. In comparison to 42 per cent

households in previous housing, now almost 90 per cent have reported availability of individual

water supply under IHSDP housing. In this period, households invested their own money in

sanitation and now nearly 90 per cent of the respondent households have access to individual

toilets. Storm water drainage and solid waste management are still in a deplorable condition,

with open drains and no system of waste disposal in place.

In the relocated IHSDP site in Mamillaguda, all the households have reported the availability of

the basic services of individual water supply, individual toilets, sewerage and storm water

drainage. However, toilets were built by the individual households, making expenses out of their

pocket. On making a comparative study with their previous housing condition, it was found that

these households already had all these basic services even in their previous housing. Rather in

the relocated colony, the households have complaints against the infrequency of water supply.

Residents also have complaints against the solid waste management system. They have reported

that the municipality does not collect garbage from their colony for weeks at a time. At the time

of project proposal, SHGs were to be involved in the SWM, but nothing is in place as of now.

Table 16: Availability of Basic services, IHSDP (% of hh) Basic Services available to HHs

(in %)

In-situ development Rehabilitation

Previous

Housing

IHSDP Housing Previous Housing IHSDP

Housing

Individual Water Supply 42 90 100 100

Individual toilets 36 90 100 100

Sewerage Line 27 79 100 100

Storm water Drainage 12 65 100 100

Solid Waste Management 27 66 100 60

4.2.2 Availability of Physical and Social Infrastructure

In the on-site IHSDP development, availability of physical infrastructure is not very impressive.

Although electricity provision has increased to 94 per cent households from a former total of 77

per cent households, the other facilities of paved roads and street lights are still in poor condition

in these localities. But, the advantage of in-situ development was that no new social

infrastructure had to be provided. Schools, colleges, etc., are all within easy reach from the

colony. PHC, government hospitals and community centres and halls are easily accessible to all

because of their location within the city area.

31

In the relocated colony also, there are very poor roads and the available roads are unpaved. More

than 91 per cent households have reported the lack of roads within the colony. The colony also

has no street-lights rendering it unsafe for its residents. All the residents have reported the

availability of electricity. In terms of social infrastructure also the situation is poor with no

schools in the area; only an anganwadi. There are no hospitals around the colony. There are no

community centres either. Yet the residents are satisfied with the way the scheme has turned out.

They are happy living in this locality, mainly as they have the ownership of the house.

Table 17: Coverage of Households by Physical Infrastructure (% of hh) Infrastructure available to HHs (in

%)

In-situ development Rehabilitation

Previous

Housing

IHSDP Housing Previous Housing IHSDP

Housing

Road 33 44 100 9

Street lighting 56 64 100 0

Electricity 77 94 100 100

4.2.3 Quality of Housing

In the in-situ development, all the houses now have 2-rooms, but separate kitchen is not

available to almost 25 per cent of the respondents. Many did not change the core design of the

house and kept the kitchen outside the house or within the living room. The construction of the

house has been done with permanent materials. All dwelling units have brick walls, RCC roofs

and wooden doors. For windows, some households have invested in metal frames. Tiled floor

completed in 90 per cent households, while many have kept it only cemented.

In the relocated site of Mamillaguda, the housing quality is comparatively better than in the

previous housing conditions of these residents. Currently, every family has two-roomed dwelling

units with separate kitchens. In their previous house, nearly 65 per cent households did not have

separate kitchens in their house. The construction of the house has been done with permanent

materials. All dwelling units have brick walls, RCC roofs and wooden doors and windows. The

construction material is better than what they had in their previous houses.

Figure 4-1: Relocated IHSDP housing in Mamillaguda

32

Figure 4-2: Site plan for Nalgonda

Source: From Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation office

4.2.4 Expenditure pattern

Being an in-situ development, expenditure increase in transportation is the least. Residents have

experienced an increase of 27 per cent in the total monthly expenses of the households. The

highest expense increase was seen in electricity consumption, as many more households have got

legal connections. With in-situ development, as expected the expenses of the households did not

undergo much change in terms of share of different overheads to total expenditure. Food

expenses have seen a fall by 6 per cent in its share.

Table 18: Change in the Expenditure Pattern after In-Situ Development

33

Items Average expenditure in

previous housing (Rs.)

% share

to total

Average

expenditure in

IHSDP (Rs.)

% share of

total

% Change in

expenditure

Food 1,367 58 1,582 52 15

Education 383 16 522 17 36

Medicines 335 14 498 16 48

Transportation 189 7 254 8 34

Electricity 92 3 165 5 79

Total 2,366 1 3,021 1 27

In the relocated site in Mamillaguda, the expenditure pattern could not be analysed due to the

lack of responses from the community. From the general discussions it was gathered that food

and medical expense increase was experienced by the community but they could not say

anything definitive about the changes in education, electricity and transport expenses.

4.3 IHSDP performance in Andhra Pradesh

In the in-situ development colony, all the households stay within 5 km of the city centre and

have to travel not more than 4 km for work. Thus, most of the respondents have reported to be

satisfied with the development done under IHSDP. The provision of subsidized materials for

constructing permanent dwelling units within the same area where they were originally residing

is seen as a positive development by the community. They are however, not satisfied with the

physical infrastructure provision. Lack of access roads and street-lights have rendered the colony

with the same slum-like condition as before. While in the rehabilitation site, the respondents are

satisfied that they have a permanent house now, but the condition of physical infrastructure in the

colony is poor, whereby the households face the same problems of water-logging in the rains and

lack of safety in the night.

The programme emphasis was on construction of shelter units, either in-situ or on the new site.

But, the services have not improved to the extent expected and consequently, improvement in the

quality of life of the beneficiaries is not as expected. At least for the in-situ development,

services’ improvement should have been done under the programme. It seems that there has been

overwhelming focus on improving the shelter conditions rather than improving service

conditions! There is however, a difference between the responses of the two approaches to this

programme. Those who have undergone in-situ development are happier than the ones relocated

as the latter group of people were shifted out of the city. In the case of in-situ development, the

programme did not have to provide for any social infrastructure, but in the relocated site, the

community has been left to fend for its own. All respondent households in both the developments

were the original allottees to the scheme housing. In the redevelopment site though, group

discussions revealed that many of the houses are unoccupied by the allottees as they are not

satisfied with the location of the colony.

34

5 Critical Assessment on the housing programmes in Andhra Pradesh

For the assessment of housing programmes in Andhra Pradesh we had selected the following

programmes: VAMBAY, IHSDP and Rajiv Gruha Kalpa. VAMBAY has been subsumed under

the BSUP in Andhra Pradesh, yet both the programmes are still on-going in the state as different

projects, so we selected to research upon the status of housing under VAMBAY, where the

dwelling units were occupied. IHSDP Housing in Nalgonda had 2 approaches to redevelopment:

in-situ and relocation; so both type of settlements were selected for analysis. In Rajiv Gruha

Kalpa, a state initiated housing project, the household survey was conducted in all the 49

households who had occupied the project housing in Nalgonda.

VAMBAY programme was studied in NTR Nagar and Nanadavanam of Hyderabad. With the

size of dwelling units fixed, the households have been shifted to 2-room houses of about 24

sq.m. However, this has been a shift from 3 to 4 roomed houses to smaller houses for almost 40

per cent of the residents. The provision of basic services like individual water supply has been

slow. It took more than 5 years for all the residents to get individual connections in NTR Nagar.

However, provision of physical infrastructure and basic services for the whole settlement is seen

only in the VAMBAY projects, amongst all the ones surveyed. Apathy from the Municipality on

issues of maintenance is a major concern for the residents of both Nandanavanam and NTR

Nagar. They experience frequent break-down in their service lines. Also, there is no garbage

collection in both the VAMBAY settlements surveyed for this research.

In Rajiv Gruha Kalpa, the rehabilitation of the Mamillaguda RGK scheme was faced with the

typical problems of lack of physical infrastructure like roads, street lights and social

infrastructure. In this site, the lack of paved roads and street lights is reported as a glaring issue.

Thus, it is not surprising that of the 194 allocated houses only 49 are currently occupied, while

the rest of the allottees are still living in the original locations within the city. In this

development, many households even reported that their dwelling units lacked doors and

windows when they shifted in. They made expenses out of their pockets to remedy this.

IHSDP has in-situ development at the Pangal site, encompassing the settlements of Sri Krishna

Nagar and Chaitanya Nagar. Thus, in the former, the households have continued to live in the

same location, yet with better housing facilities and permanent materials for constructing their

dwelling units. However, in IHSDP coverage of basic services is poorer than the other

programmes. Many households still do not have individual water connections, toilets as well as

connections to sewerage lines, storm water drainage. Roads and street lights have not been

provided adequately.

In case of in-situ development, as the households were provided with money for permanent

material for building houses in their original housing location – most households are satisfied

35

with the better quality of lives now. They have their social networks in place while the

government did not have to worry about providing social infrastructure to these communities. In

the second case, which is relocation under the IHSDP at Mamillaguda, while the shelter

conditions have improved, the residents are facing the lack of storm water drainage, solid waste

management, street lights and paved roads.

5.1 Post-project situation

Physical infrastructure: Other than VAMBAY housing, no other programmes gave cent per

cent coverage to beneficiaries under the schemes. Lack of solid waste management system is the

most glaring across all the scheme settlements. Physical infrastructure provision is also not

satisfactory – other than VAMBAY sites, all the other settlements had complaints about the lack

of paved roads and street-lights across the settlement. Mamillaguda in Nalgonda has both IHSDP

and RGK scheme housing and in both sites, there is lack of proper roads and street lights.

Lack of Social infrastructure: Other than the on-site redevelopment under IHSDP, all other

scheme settlements surveyed faced problems with the lack of social infrastructure. Pangal along

with associated settlements of Sri Krishna Nagar and Chaitanya Nagar are in-situ IHSDP

developments. Thus, they are the only slums which do not have to face problems with regards to

schooling of their children, accessing health services or commuting to their place of work. In all

other settlements, communities have to travel far for schools, markets, hospitals, etc., resulting in

significant rise in expenditures on education, health services and transportation. Expenditure on

education seems to have increased because households may have been forced to send their

children to private schools, given that generally public or municipal schools are not available on

the city periphery.

Lack of maintenance: Although most of the physical infrastructure and basic services are in

place in VAMBAY settlements, NTR Nagar and Nandanavanam, face problems with the

maintenance of these service lines. Choked sewerage and drainage lines, breakdown in networks,

etc., are being managed by the residents themselves. Although VAMBAY has all the basic

services and physical infrastructure in place, there is lack of maintenance, which the residents

believe is on account of the location of settlements on the periphery.

5.2 Impact of rehabilitation

All the rehabilitated settlements across the programmes have faced the problems of travelling

longer distances for every day needs, work place and schools than before. In a mega city like

Hyderabad, peripheral locations mean being more than 10 km away from the established areas of

work. VAMBAY settlements in NTR Nagar and Nandanavanam are in the city peripheries and

the resettled communities have had to rebuild their social networks - with no schools, markets or

health centres nearby. Likewise, RGK and IHSDP (Mamillaguda site) also approached housing

36

through rehabilitation. Housing, when seen as a commodity, means that a full house has to be

provided and which is feasible only where the lands are available. Lands being available in the

city periphery, the governments go for relocation/rehabilitation approach to housing. If housing

is seen as a heterogeneous commodity and as a bundle of services, this pre-occupation with

constructed house would not be there. Also, if housing were to be considered as a basic right,

with at the least guarantee of no eviction and allowing the community initiatives to blossom, we

would not create a situation of creating new set of problems to address old set of problems. In

fact, these case studies indicate that new sets of problems have been created while not solving

the old sets of problems. The selection of resettlement sites showed complete lack of

understanding of the livelihood and lifestyle requirements of the communities to be shifted into

those houses. RGK housing all around the state have failed to provide even humane conditions of

living. Occupants have complained of tenement type settlements, lacking of water and of poor

construction. To top this, as the housing site is in rehabilitated sites in city peripheries, makes

even the allocated beneficiaries wary of owning these units. In most of these schemes, we could

find half of the occupants as tenants of the original allottees indicate the failure of these schemes.

Lastly, many of these schemes remain grossly unoccupied.

5.3 Absence of Community Participation

One critical issue that was observed during our primary survey was that many of the allocated

dwelling units were empty. That inspite of having a house to one’s name had failed to get

families to shift to these schemes is a telling fact of the lack of community consent for these

programmes. Community Participation in planning is mandatory for successful implementation

of programmes. Along with including community contribution in projects through micro-finance,

communities also need to be made aware of the physical transformations within their dwelling

space or of rehabilitation measures. Information dissemination is an important part of community

participation, as well as garnering their consent. It has been seen in this study that in all the

programmes there is a strong presence of tenants. The allottees in many cases prefer to live in

slums within the city, rather than be rehabilitated in the city peripheries. The current RAY

programmes being launched has recognised the importance of on-site rehabilitation of slums,

with the caveat that any rehabilitation would have the slum dwellers’ consent and involvement.

Since the initiation of JNNURM in 2005, the need for community participation has been

mandated, yet all the housing programmes in this research present a poor picture of community

involvement in decision making.

5.4 Summing up

A look at the housing programmes in Andhra Pradesh over time and their performances up till

date paints a disconcerting picture of social welfare. Inspite of being a strong welfare state, the

success of public housing, through various programmes in the state, be these national

programmes like VAMBAY and IHSDP or the state-led programmes like RGK, have not been

37

very successful. The biggest advantage received by the allottees of these programmes is the

ownership of a house. Yet, it has been seen across the programmes that all the rehabilitated

settlements had almost 50 per cent tenants, with the original allottees were still residing

somewhere within the city limits in slum housing. Many allottees have also sold off their houses.

And many allottees had not occupied the housing leaving a chunk of dwelling units constructed

unoccupied. The best option is always in-situ development and in case that is not possible then

relocation on sites nearby their original housing. Locating low-income housing on the city

periphery as a consequence of following market logic to housing supply would create more

deprivations than it is meant to reduce. Lastly, shelter security is an integrated concept, which

included not only house structure, but also availability of basic services, accessibility and social

stability. Only then housing security would lead to inclusive development.

38

Annexure

Box 3. Urban Poverty Alleviation Programmes

S.

No.

Year of

launch

Urban Poverty Alleviation Programmes

1 1958 Urban Community Development (UCD)

2 1972 Environmental Improvement of Urban Slums (EIUS)

3 1981 Low Cost Sanitation for Liberation of Scavengers

4 1986 Urban Basic Services (UBS)

5 1989 Nehru Rozgar Yojna (NRY)

6 1990 Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP)

7 1995 Prime Minister’s Intergrated Urban Poverty Eradication

Programme

8 1996 National Slum Development Programme (NSDP)

9 1997 Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY)

10 2001 Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojna (VAMBAY)

11 2005 Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP)/ Jawaharlal Nehru

National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM)

12 2009 Rajiv Awas Yojna (RAY)

39

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Notes

1 http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=924&catid=1&typeid=25&subMenuId=0

2 General Comment 4, Sixth Session, 1991, Paragraphs 7 and 8.

3 UN Habitat Declarations, accessed on 3 Dec 2010 (http://ww2.unhabitat.org/declarations/)

4 Report of the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12) Working Group on Urban Housing with Focus on Slums, MoHUPA, Government of India, New Delhi

5 It means that if the public authority wants a piece of land for some public purpose, it can grant development rights over a piece of land elsewhere to the landowner. How much of land area would be granted elsewhere would depend upon the formula worked out by the public authority.

6 FSI is the ratio of built-up area to the plot area.

7 Greater details on VAMBAY can be accessed at the MoHUPA website (mhupa.gov.in/programs/upa/nsdp/vambay.htm)

8 More about RGK can be found at the Andhra Pradesh RGK link (http://www.aponline.gov.in/apportal/HomePageLinks/RajivGruhaKalpa.htm and http://housing.cgg.gov.in/schemes/RGK_Urban.html)

9 ‘Sonia launches Rajiv Gruhakalpa scheme, The Hindu, 17 March, 2005, Accessed on 30 Nov 2010, (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2005/03/17/stories/2005031714360500.htm)

10 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation officials, 2008-2009.

List of CUE Working Papers

WP 1 Subversive Urban Development in India: Implications on Planning Education, by Darshini Mahadevia and Rutul Joshi, December 2009.

WP 2 Approaches to the Lands for the Urban Poor, India: A workshop Report, by Darshini

Mahadevia, Rutul Joshi and Rutool Sharma, December 2009. WP 3 Integrating the Urban Poor in Planning and Governance Systems, India: A Workshop

Report, by Darshini Mahadevia, Rutul Joshi and Rutool Sharma, December 2009. WP 4 Land Reservations for the Urban Poor: The Case of Town Planning Schemes in

Ahmedabad, by the Rutul Joshi and Prashant Sanga, December 2009. WP 5 Housing Options and Mobility of Urban Migrants in India and China, Darshini

Mahadevia, Zhiyan Liu, Xiuming Yuan, April 2010. WP 6 From Basic Service Delivery to Policy Advocacy – Community Mobilisation in

Pravinnagar-Guptanagar, Ahmedabad, by Rajendra Joshi, Pooja Shah, Keren Nazareth, Darshini Mahadevia, June 2010.

WP 7 Mobilizing Women for Change – Case Study of Sanjaynagar, Ahmedabad, by Bijal Bhatt

and Pooja Shah, June 2010. WP 8 Livelihoods for the Urban Poor:A Case Study of UMEED Programme in Ahmedabad, by

C.N. Ray, September 2010. WP 9 Tenure Security through External Agency Intervention – Case of Vasna, Ahmedabad,

Darshini Mahadevia, Rutool Sharma, Pooja Shah, Pavankumar Ankonapalli, December 2010

WP 10 Welfare Extension by Local State and Social Protection: Surat, Darshini Mahadevia and

Pooja Shah, December 2010

Centre for Urban Equity (CUE) advocates a human-centered and equitable

urban development paradigm. The activities of CUE are research, policy

advocacy, training and capacity building and data documentation and

dissemination. The Centre is a National Resource Centre of Ministry of Housing

and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India.

Centre for Urban Equity

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

Kasturbhai Lalbhai Campus, University Road, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad – 380009