Event: Meeting on Bhubaneswar Citywide Slum Upgradation Strategy at NIUA

Date: 6 June 2008

Venue: NIUA, New Delhi

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A meeting on Bhubaneshwar Citywide Slum Upgradation Strategy was jointly organized by NIUA and Indo-US FIRED project at NIUA on June 6, 2008.  It was attended by about 15 persons including Ms. Aparajita Sarangi, IAS, Commissioner, Bhubaneshwar Municipal Corporation BMC, Ms. Rebecca Black USAID, Mr. Lee Baker FIRE-D Project, Mr. N.Bhattacharjee WSP, Mr. Sunder Bura SPARC, and Mr. Siddharth Agarwal UHRC.

Prof. Chetan Vaidya, Director, NIUA welcomed the participants to this important meeting.  Ms. Black gave a background of the meeting and identified issues for discussions such as need for citywide slum upgradation, financing options, tenure, linking health with water, sanitation, incentives for local bodies, undertake slum upgradation, etc.

Ms. Sarangi thanked NIUA and FIRED Project for organizing the meeting.  She said that present population of Bhubaneshwar is about 1.1 million and slum population account for about 23% of total population.  There are about 332 slums in the city and only 80 of them are authorized slums.  Most of the slum settlements are in the central parts of the city.  BMC has decided not to relocate the slums except those slums that are on main access roads or on environmentally sensitive locations.  Three projects of slum upgradation covering 2000 houses have been approved under JNNURM.  BMC is helping over 1,000 self help groups in the slums under Swarna Jayanti Rozgar Yojana.  BMC with help of the FIRED project is carrying out a survey of all slums on the city.  Slum profiles for 98 slum settlements are completed and the profile will be released on August 31, 2008.  BMC will undertake Pilot Water Supply and Sanitation  WSS Program in three settlements with help of the Dell Foundation.  All BMC interventions in the slum areas are through active community participation.  BMC will be introducing a service charge in the slum areas in near future.  Many Corporates are willing to support slum improvement projects in the city.

Mr. N.Bhattacharjee, Mr. Anuj Srivastava, Mr. Siddharth Agarwal, Mr. Lee Baker, Ms. Paramita Dey and Mr. Sunder Bura participated in the discussion.  Key points emerging from the discussions are summarized below:-

• Based on information provided by the slum level surveys, BMC will prepare a paper on citywide slum strategy.

• The strategy will include estimated costs of citywide slum upgradation program under different options and feasible financing plan.

• BMC will integrate the slum improvement program with health and education programs.

• Based on experience of pilot WSS Project in three slums, the program will be extended to other areas.

• USAID and UHRC offered to help BMC to prepare a proposal to GoI to access support for its health programs for the poor.

Meeting ended with thanks to the Commissioner BMC, USAID, FIRED Project and other participants.