SA was appointed as consultant for the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) in Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, a peri-urban area about 400 kms south of Mumbai on the banks of the river Krishna, with a population close to 550,000. Our city-wide design proposal, informed by our poverty mapping and use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, optimized the use of the limited land available to meet the rehabilitation and relocation needs of the families living in 29 slums across the city.
The IHSDP had been introduced by the Government of India (GOI) for the improvement of slums in cities and towns under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The critical objective of the IHSDP was holistic slum development with a healthy, and enabling urban environment, by providing adequate shelter with security of tenure and basic infrastructure facilities.
The housing stock created would be sufficient to provide formal housing, with security of tenure and improved sanitation, to the families in 29 slums, almost half of the slum population of the peri-urban area.
A critical aspect of our approach was that it did not involve moving the beneficiary families to faraway sites on the edge of the peri-urban areas which lack services (transport, water and drainage) and drives them deeper into poverty. Hence, relocation would not impact their access to places of employment, and amenities such as schools, health centres, emergency services and markets.
The GOI approved this project for its innovative, holistic and inclusive approach, which could be emulated in other cities. This approach later became part of the Government policy framed under Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), which requires cities to map its poor using GIS and remote sensing technologies.