Pk Tatilu, 36, runs a tailoring shop out of his one-room asbestos house in Nolia Sahi, which is one of the oldest slums in Puri’s temple town of Konark. Father to two young daughters, Tatilu claims his family had lived in the slums for three generations, albeit without any legal rights. But that changed earlier this year when he saw a drone hovering over his house.
The drone was the harbinger of a new initiative by the Odisha government — called the Jaga (Land) Mission — which is the world’s largest slum land title project. It involves the government surveying and awarding slum dwellers like Tatilu a legal land title. Last week, the Odisha government became the first in the country to bag an award from the World Habitat Mission for this particular project.
Under the Mission, Odisha’s Housing and Urban Development Department, in collaboration with Tata Trusts, is “transforming slums into liveable habitat with all necessary civic infrastructure and services at par with the better off areas within the same urban local body (ULB)”.
So far... around 30,000 households have received land rights certificates (LRCs) in Puri and Ganjam districts.
After LRC distribution, the focus will shift to individual and public toilets, household tap water supply, LED street lighting, and skill improvement etc.
Read more of this in a report by Sampad Patnaik published in The Indian Express... (Link given below)
