Urban Poverty Reduction Strategy In Select Cities of India

The current approach of the Government of India to tackle urban poverty is three-pronged. The first is to provide the urban poor with housing and infrastructure. The second is to ensure institutional reforms to facilitate decentralization as envisaged in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (74th CAA) and to ensure accountability of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to the citizens. The third approach is to facilitate access to livelihoods/employment through policies like the National Policy for Urban Street Vendors (NPUSV) and programs like the Swarn Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY).

City Development Plans (CDPs)have been prepared for all 63 JNNURM cities. There is a clear need, however, for CDPs to promote integrated strategies for the urban poor in these cities. To address this lacuna, as a first pilot, Urban Poverty Reduction Strategies (UPRSs) for 11 cities have been prepared under the GOI-UNDP Project on National Strategy for the Urban Poor. These eleven cities comprise two megacities (Kolkata and Chennai) three cities with a 4 million plus population (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Hyderabad), and five cities with a 1 million plus population (Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Pune, Indore) and Ambala (a non-JNNURM city for an alternative perspective).

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