On 1st February 2012 the casting of the first floor slab at Sanjay Nagar in Miraj commenced. An inauguration ceremony, to mark the occasion, was carried out by the elected representative of Sanjay Nagar, some Sangli, Miraj, and Kupwad Municipal Corporation (SMKMC) Engineers, representatives of Shelter Associates, and members of the Sanjay Nagar community.
On 27th & 28th of January 2012 two members of Shelter Associates attended a Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) National Consultation in Bangalore, which was organised by CIVIC BANGALORE (Citizens Voluntary Initiative for the City), Hazards Centre, and INHAF. At the consultation Shelter Associates presented their Integrated Housing and Slum Development Program (IHSDP), which is currently being implemented in Sangli and Miraj under the Government of India's (GOI) Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Shelter Associates suggested to the GOI's Planning Commission representative that the IHSDP in Sangli and Miraj is a better pilot of the GOI's new slum rehabilitation scheme RAY, than the RAY pilot that is currently being piloted in Ward 14 of Pune, because the Shelter Associates project in Sangli and Miraj includes more of the principal of RAY. The RAY Guidelines state that a city-wide holistic approach should be adopted in relation to slum rehabilitation , and that the community should be involved at all stages and that "the attempt to design for the people should be done with the people" (please refer to GOI RAY Guidelines Section 5.2.2 and 5.2.5). All slums within a city should be included within one strategy which, when implemented, should result in all slum dwellers being freed from the risk of eviction. This idea has not been adopted for the RAY pilot in Pune as the 5 slums within the ward have been given to 3 separate NGO's, meaning that no holistic strategy for the ward can be proposed.
Shelter Associates also questioned some of the opinions held by attendees which had little practical application, and asserted the necessity of people with experience in slum rehabilitation attending these consultations as and impractical opinions tend to prevail, such as:
"The relocation of slum dwellers is always bad and should be resisted'"
The land that slums occupy is not owned by the residents of the slums and some say that the slum dwellers should be given the ownership of the land. However, this is not always a good idea as the land might be prone to flooding, it might have development plan reservations associated with it, it might be owned by multiple parties and/or it might be owned privately. Shelter Associates position is that all slum dwellers should be given security of tenure and at the end of a rehabilitation process and should be freed from the risk of eviction and to achieve this two strategies should be adopted. Strategy 1: Slums that are free from flooding, and development plan reservations, and whose ownership can be handed to the slum dwellers should be rehabilitated in-situ to a higher density so that slum dwellers from nearby slums can be accommodated; these slums become 'receiving sites' for nearby slum dwellers who are at risk of eviction. Strategy 2: Slums that are prone to flooding, or have development plan reservations, or are privately owned should be relocated to nearby 'receiving sites'.
This means that relocation is a necessary element of slum rehabilitation and is the reason why a holistic city-wide approach has always been advocated by Shelter Associates; a strategy for the whole urban area must be prepared to ensure that all slum dwellers are freed from the risk of eviction. Relocations are not evictions and with skill, care, community participation and social mobilisation, relocations can be an integral component of a meaningful process of rehabilitation. This has been the case in the IHSDP in Sangli and Miraj where the Sanjay Nagar slum happily and peacefully moved to a transition camp so that the contractor could commence construction on the houses that all members of the Sanjay Nagar community want.
"Only BSUP service upgrades should be considered"
The Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) is often cited as the best way to address the situation in slums. Shelter Associates accept BSUP as a temporary measure because it addresses issues of health and hygiene because the slums get connected to the municipal water, sanitation, waste and power systems. However; the BSUP approach, as it has been implemented in Pune (Maharashtra), fails to address the fundamental issue of ownership; at the end of a BSUP scheme slum dwellers are still exposed to the risk of eviction. The BSUP approach also fails to address the issue of access and egress in the event of a fire and the issues associated with natural light and ventilation. Under BSUP model of slum rehabilitation the footprint of the existing houses tends to remain too narrow to provide access for fire fighters, or adequate natural light or natural ventilation. Shelter Associates feel that these narrow streets put an unsustainable (and unnecessary) financial burden on the slum dwellers as homes are required to be artificially lit and artificially ventilated. And, as slums dwellers can opt out of a BSUP scheme it is debatable to what extent this approach can address the health and hygiene issues in a slum anyway.
On 27th January 2012 a Shelter Associates Community Worker, Mrs. Sangita Chougule, who is a resident of the Sangliwadi slum, and therefore a beneficiary of the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Program, presented the Shelter Associates Slum Data Directory to the Sangli, Miraj and Kupwad Municial Corporation; the SMKMC are charged with the responsibility of implementing the IHSDP in Sangli and Miraj under the Government of India's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
Mrs. Sangita Chougules gave her presentation to the officer who is in charge of information technology at the Urban Local Body and explained how the data for all slums in Sangli, Miraj and Kupwad area, which was collected by Shelter Associates, has been organised on the Shelter Associates web site.
Mrs. Sangita Chougules explained that the four Administrative Wards of the SMKMC have been illustrated, and that by clicking on one of the Administrative Wards the user is directed to an image which shows all of the Electoral Wards within that Administrative Ward. Once the viewer is looking at the Electoral Wards they can also see the of the slums in that area, and that by clicking on a slum the user will be provided with brief information about the slum and a link to that slums factsheet. The factsheet provides detailed information about the slum such as: population, ownership, services, local amenities, etc.
Mrs. Sangita Chougules also highlighted that the Administrative Wards, Electoral Wards, and slums in the Slum Data Directory have all been accurately drawn over a Google Earth satellite image of the Sangli, Miraj and Kupwad area, meaning that all of the information within the Shelter Associates Slum Data Directory is spatially organised. The SMKMC Information Officer was impressed by the quantity and quality of the information that had been collected by Shelter Associates, and the clarity of its organisation, and presentation on the Shelter Associates website. The I.T. officer suggested that a link to the Slum Data Directory would be put onto the SMKMC website.
On 22nd January 2012 residents of the Vijay Nagar slum visited the construction site at Sanjay Nagar Miraj to observe the progress of the work on site and to gain a greater understanding of the residential units that they will move into under the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Program (IHSDP).
In mid December 2011 a Shelter Associates Community Worker, Mrs. Noorjahan Kaladagi, conducted a meeting with the beneficiaries of the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Program (IHSDP) who had recently left their slum and moved to a transition camp (please refer to the flyer in the 'Download' section of this website called 'Peaceful relocation of Sanjaynagar, Miraj to a transit camp'). These meetings are part of an on going process of social mobilisation and provide forums for the details of the IHSDP to be discussed with the beneficiares.
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