Bhubaneswar: Ahead of polls in urban areas, the state government has decided to divert forest land to create infrastructure for dwellers residing in 253 slums spread across 45 urban local bodies (ULBs) in 22 districts.
This was known from a workshop organised on creation of basic infrastructure for slum habitats in urban forest areas at Lok Seva Bhawan Monday. Addressing the workshop, Housing and Urban Development Secretary G Mathivhathanan said the government has launched the special campaign for transforming the urban habitats to Biju Adarsha Colonies.
Around 3,000 slum habitats containing 168,141 households were identified through a special survey named Urban Slum Household Areas (USHA) undertaken with geo-spatial technology in NACs and municipalities, he said.Out of this, 70,000 households were granted in-situ land rights and 1,03,328 households given land entitlement certificates. Meanwhile, 550 slums were upgraded and mainstreamed with urban life, the secretary said.
During the USHA survey, 253 slums spread across 45 ULBs in 22 districts were found to be in urban forest land. Because of the forest area, problems cropped up with regard to settlement of land rights and laying of infrastructure for basic amenities, pointed out Director of Municipal Administration Sangramjeet Nayak. To overcome the situation, the forest, environment and climate change and H&UD departments have prepared a standard operating procedure. The SOP would resolve the problems relating to land rights and infrastructure in slum habitats of urban forest areas.
The SOP was successfully piloted in Dhenkanal municipality. The government will implement the SOP in all 253 slums in urban forest areas. The Chief Secretary directed the concerned departments to complete the task in a time-bound manner. Both the administrative departments would nominate senior officers as the nodal officers for smooth implementation of the SOP.