Slum-dwellers to get house-owner’s rights

Even as the UPA government is fire-fighting the crisis created by yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s threat to go on fast over black money stashed away in foreign banks, the cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) on Thursday conferred “property rights to house-owners”.

After the cabinet meeting, home minister P Chidambaram said it is part of the Rajiv Aawaas Yojana and this would help slum development projects in 250 cities with a population of over a lakh and will benefit 32.1 million people. He said this measure will also arrest growth of slums as a plan for encouraging low-cost housing is also part of it.

The Centre is also planning to float mortgage fund of Rs1,000 crore to lend support for its implementation.

Chidambaram said the Centre will bear 50% of the expenditure on slum development, and the remaining amount will have to be generated by the state governments. He said a detailed briefing would be done by urban affairs minister Kumari Selja soon.

The minister conceded that this would involve legalising some of the slums but that these decisions will have to be taken by the state governments based on the legal aspects.

The idea of giving ownership rights to slum-dwellers has been mooted by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, who has argued that one of the ways of making the poor people stakeholders is to give them property rights and the documents that go with it, and that this will radically turn the dispossessed citizens into rightful stakeholders in the economy and in the country.