Meeting with German team on housing plan

If State agrees to the proposal after the meeting, Tamil Nadu would be the second partner State after Odisha

CHENNAI: In a bid to bring in Tamil Nadu as a partner State under the Inclusive Cities Partnership Programme (ICPP), officials from the German International Cooperation (GIZ) would meet top officials from the Housing department on Tuesday.

If the State agrees to the proposal after the GIZ officials’ meeting with the top officials of the Housing department, Tamil Nadu would be the second partner State after Odisha.

An official from GIZ told Express that if the proposal went through, the agency would help draft the framework for preparation of Integrated Housing for All Plan of Action with an object of integrating various city-level plans with focus on housing.

The GIZ ICPP is assisting the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) in developing instruments, methods and expertise for the implementation of in-situ slum upgrading with a view to support and facilitate an efficient and effective roll-out of the ‘Housing for All’ programme.

Odisha was approved as the first partner State during the first meeting of the steering committee of the Government of India-GIZ ICPP programme last year. Two cities - Puri and Behrampur - were selected.

The decision to include Tamil Nadu was taken at the second meeting.

“It is up to the State government to decide which cities they want us to work on under the programme,” the official said. 

]This comes at a time when the State is struggling to conduct the demand survey for housing, a prerequisite for getting funds from the Centre under the Housing for All project.

It is learnt that the Housing Secretary had also written a letter to the Census Commissioner to get census data to help prepare the plan of action.

Currently, detailed project reports for 197 projects covering 34,013 families had got approval from the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee.

Factfile   Tamil Nadu plans to create

12.94 lakh housing stock in 666 statutory towns under the Housing for All project.

TN signs a memorandum of understanding with the Union government to conduct a demand survey for assessing the actual housing requirement.

The Slum Clearance Board only has socio-economic caste census data which was obtained from the National Informatic Centre.

The TNSCB approached the Regional Census Office in Chennai seeking census data. The plea was turned down.

The Slum Clearance Board says that Housing for All Plan of Action is likely to be delayed by nearly a year due to lack of data.

After elections the Housing Secretary shots off a letter to Census Commissioner, seeking census data.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation held second power steering committee meeting. The meeting decided to include TN as second

State after Odisha to be included under Inclusive Cities Partnership Programme.

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