Sundar Burra was invited by Shri I.Srinivas, IAS, Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Government of Odisha (GOO), to speak at a capacity building workshop for Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). The workshop was held in Bhubaneswar on Saturday, December 8, 2012 and it opened with a prize giving ceremony in which the Chief Minister gave awards to various ULBs. Altogether there were 103 ULBs represented with only a few municipal corporation and municipalities. The vast majority of ULBs were Notified Area Committees (NACs) with low levels of population. Each ULB was represented by usually two elected persons and one official. About 400 people attended the function.
Ms. Madhu Kishwar of Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, spoke about urban street vendors and the laws, polices and programmes concerning these groups. There were two speakers from WIPRO and TCS who made brief presentations on E-Governance. Sundar Burra and Monalisa Mohanty from SPARC spoke about the problems faced in slum upgradation, slum resettlement and slum redevelopment under various different government programmes like the Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP) in different States. SPARC emphasized the role of community participation at all stages of the process including the preparation of detailed project reports (DPRs).
The Principal Secretary Shri Srinivas, though he had joined only a few months ago, has introduced a path-breaking legislation in the Assembly for the Rights of the Urban Poor to live in cities. It is expected that this bill will become law during the current session of the Assembly. Shri Srinivas is an excellent officer whose heart is in the right place. He accompanied Monalisa Mohanty and Sunder to a slum on the day before the workshop and interacted with the Mahila Milan women from different cities in Odisha. Both from the point of view of the project on urban poverty that PRIA and SPARC are doing together and also from a more general perspective, it is important for us to engage with Shri Srinivas and showcase his efforts in Odisha to a national audience. How to do this can be the subject of discussion. It was deeply heartening to observe his commitment.
No comments:
Post a Comment