BJP plays poll cover drive for city’s poor

It's election season and Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation Bandaru Dattatreya is concentrating entirely on the latter e...

It’s election season and Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation Bandaru Dattatreya is concentrating entirely on the latter element. The National Policy for Slums, which has been coming in bits and pieces, and the National Policy for Street Vendors will now be clubbed into a feel-good package for the urban poor.

Slums which thrive on ad hoc water and electricity supply will be replaced by multi-storey low-cost apartments. And 2.3 lakh eco-friendly houses — as promised by the Prime Minister — are coming up in cities to do away with jhuggis.

‘‘Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra have already taken a lead in this, through our popular VAMBAY (Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana) scheme. It is one of the few policies that I want to put in place before the elections,’’ Dattatreya said.

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Easy loans for the state governments through the government-owned HUDCO is matched by 50 per cent (of the project) grant from the Centre. Those of the urban poor lucky to avail the programme will also get soft cooperative loans (large tracts of lucrative urban land will also be freed in the process).

Then comes the National Street Vendors Policy. ‘‘It is important for urban areas. We have to save these vendors from harassment, exploitation from the police, money lenders, municipal corporations and other such authorities,’’ Dattatreya said.

Under the policy, 2.5 crore vendors will be given ID cards which will make them eligible for more promising financial operations like bank loans. ‘‘It will eradicate the uncertainty of their lives,’’ the minister said. Several cities have been chosen for the policy — Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kolkata and Mumbai — where vendor zones will be created.