National strategy for urban poor

01 Sep 2005 30 Nov 2007
The National Strategy for the Urban Poor - NCR component, is an intervention funded by the UNDP, and is being taken forward in joint partnership between GoI and NIUA. The intervention focuses on the problems related to urban growth and the sub-standard conditions of survival, where the populations can only keep pace with subsistence by ever more heroic feats of self-exploitation and the further competitive subdivision of already densely filled survival niches. The objective of the programme is to offer holistic solutions to the problems of urban growth, and is concentrated in six areas in Delhi, as identified by the Delhi Government.

In this context we would like to draw your attention to the Kalyanpuri, one of the targeted areas in the intervention and the area of key involvement of TERI. Located in the eastern part of the city, it encompasses 4 blocks and is sited in ward no. 70. The intervention focuses on the evolution of sustainable livelihoods and the provision of basic services (solid waste management) for the residents of the resettlement colony. The primary objectives of the intervention are: [a] promote a more sensitive and effective approach to the design and implementation of development interventions, and [b] facilitate a strategy promoting a clean and sustainable environment for the residents of the resettlement colony.

The morphological structure of our cities, is a reflection of their multi-ethnic population base, complex functional structure, the power play that determines its institutional disposition, the historic layer of its urban fabric and above all its economic propensity poised to change direction any moment. The often-repeated expression that cities are "the engines of economic growth", recognises this characteristic, and now planned development needs to identify and provide the rudimentary structure necessary to facilitate them. It is at this juncture that TERI envisages to facilitate the community, and provide in the already existing institutional structure a system of sustainable livelihoods