Slum Planning Schemes

Abstract

Public agencies and NGOs in India have been pursuing slum-improvement projects since a long time, often with remarkable success. However, though political resolve, finances and basic institutional capacity are not a constraint today, scaling-up has become a formidable challenge. This article argues that officers in government agencies are unable to rapidly structure and implement slum-improvement projects because they lack an effective slum-improvement-specific statutory framework within which to operate. Moreover, lacking overriding legal powers, they are unable to cut through accumulated revenue and planning related regulatory tangles. In addition, they are unable to adjudicate between and compensate claimants and to grant secure tenure so that public officials may deliver basic infrastructure on formerly disputed land and slum dwellers can access finance and invest into their homes in a then safe environment. Therefore, the key to scaling-up—as the ambitious Rajiv Awas Yojana proposes to do—is to institute a comprehensive statutory process enabling agencies to concurrently deal with technical, financial, organizational and tenure complexities. The introduction explains the need for the statutory framework. Section I proposes the process. ‘slum Planning Schemes’ strengthen participation, enable collaboration with NGOs and the private sector, promote transparency, encourage professional excellence and support fiscal prudence. The tool acknowledges the importance of tenure history and upholds formal and informal rights of landowners, communities and the government. The process is pragmatic and promotes fairness. Eschewing a one-size-fits-all policy approach, it allows flexibility in structuring slum-specific improvement projects while assigning tenure rights. Section II briefly describes a network of local, state and national agencies for rapidly structuring and implementing SPSs, promising rapid and sustainable improvement and integration of slum communities within the formal city.