New Delhi: The government’s plan to make Delhi slum-free by 2010 seems to be a distant dream as the government will not be able to erect the required eight lakh housing units for slum dwellers within the scheduled timeframe.

Delhi’s Urban Development Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan said the government will only be able to provide one lakh units to the slum dwellers across the state.

The government is trying to beautify the city by 2010 as the games are expected to bring in thousands of foreign tourists. The slums present a grim picture, with people living there without basic facilities like water and sanitation.

Chauhan said under the various housing schemes of the government, four lakh houses would be provided to slum dwellers in future.

He further said the process to invite applications for the first 10,000 houses from slum dwellers would begin shortly and added that the real picture will emerge only after we get applications for the 10,000 units.

These houses are being built under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and will be given to those whose annual income is not more than Rs 60,000 per annum.

The slum residential complexes under the Rajiv Ratna Awas Yojana (RRAY) have been planned in the city’s peripheral areas like Narela, Najafgarh, Shahdara and Jahangirpuri.

These will have basic amenities like schools, parks, transport, drinking water, electricity and shops for daily needs, state government officials said.

“Wherever land is available, the government will construct multi-storey housing apartments for them. The first 10,000 units will be constructed in Bawana. It will be ready for allotment by August 2008,” Chauhan claimed.

The city’s Mayor and Chairperson of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), Arti Mehra, underlined the need for a proactive approach to make the capital slum free.

She said that providing accommodation to some 3.5 to four million people living in slums is not an easy task; there should be a deadline to construct the houses.

The Planning Commission estimated a shortage of 25 million houses for the urban poor in the next five years.

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