[Urbanstudy] Fwd: [Reader-list] Appropriating slum land

[Aditi thorat]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: hpp at vsnl.com <hpp at vsnl.com>
Date: Oct 10, 2005 6:19 PM
Subject: [Reader-list] Appropriating slum land
To: aditi.thorat at gmail.com

Hullo

Thank you for your message in response to my posting on sarai.

Here are my answers to your questions:

1. What was the stipulated composition of the Community Development
Societies under the KUSP?

The project implementation institutional structure is based on the model
promoted by the Govt of India under the UBSP, Swarna Jayanti Shehari Rojgaar
Yojana etc, i.e. women from poor households forming a neighbourhood group; a
resident community volunteer assigned to work with each such group;
representatives of a number of neighbourhood groups form the neighbourhood
committee; and reprs of a number of such neighbourhod committees. ultimately
form the CDS. What was meant to be a bottom-up formation, the owner of the
project, has instead become a top-down, arbitrarily imposed structure, which
also takes away all accountability. While basically being undertaken by the
party (municipal leaders), the neither-here-nor-there CDS is now there to be
blamed for everything. As they stand, the CDSs are simply not equipped to
play the role the KUSP project intended them to play.

2. What were the intended responsibilities of the CDS?

The CDS, as the representative of the community-based structure - is meant
to be the real "owner" of the KUSP project - in terms of its commitment to
the project objectives of providing necessary slum-level infrastructure
(water, sanitation, drainage, solid waste management), reducing poverty,
promoting livelihood; in terms of commitment to identifying, involving and
benefitting the poor housholds; in terms of identifying the critical needs
of the households and the slum neighbourhood, determining the nature of
improvements to be carried out, determining priorities for action;
determining micro-macro linkages; and coordinating with the urban local
bodies, esp. the engineering department.

3. How were the enumerations under KUSP done and what information was
collected?

Good question! I would also like to know this, because what seems to have
actually happened is quite arbitrary and improper. The local bodies have
provided lists of the supposed slum clusters in the municipalities. And
quick surveys are supposed to have been done in selected slums. How and why
particular slums were selected is not clear. The lists of slums (sometimes
more than one list) with the local bodies - also appear to be not entirely
in order. For instance, one large basti, known by one common name, has been
broken up into 4-5 parts, each one appearing as a separate slum; when the
various parts together define a single slum; and this single, large slum
therefore has some fundamental macro-level features, problems and
improvement agenda. This vanishes when one breaks the slum up into so many
parts. The quick survey - ultimately everything has been done, or got done,
by the party. Thus, households have been enumerated based on the party's
calculations. The surveys were
done through the municipal councillors (and as in the case of Howrah, the
modest remuneration offered per questionnaire was also pocketed by the
councillor.

Which slums were selected; which parts of the slum were identified; which
households were targetted as beneficiaries; what works were taken up; why;
how these works were undertaken; the quality of the work ---- everything is
withour any sound rational basis, everything is quite arbitrary.


4. On the basis of what information exactly do you say, "people have been
tutored to say the right things about this CDS structure?"

My analysis is based largely on field-level observations and investigation
in Howrah.

I have also been somewhat privy to the work being undertaken by an agency
commissioned by KUSP and DFID to evaluate the slum-level engineering works
in Howrah as well as a number of municipalities. This agency organised many
meetings with different project stakeholders (municipal leaders, officials,
the CDS members etc etc). However, this is meant to be confidential.

I had received from this agency information reg. the project work in Howrah;
and then initiated grassroots level enquiries about what actually happened -
from both the doing / ruling party / group as well as the opposition.

Despite my habitual severely critical and cynical outlook, I had implicitly
hoped that a lot of much-needed good would come out of the KUSP project. The
picture that clearly emerged, from my investigation, and that conducted by
this agency - was something even I was unprepared for, and put me into deep
dismay.

Hope this is helpful. I'd be grateful to know more about you (and Vinay).

Best regards

V Ramaswamy
Calcutta
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