Shelters for displaced slum dwellers

Manika Gupta

In its latest initiative, World Vision, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), has handed over 221 houses to slum dwellers in the Capital and another 94 houses to widows and orphans in the Tauru block of Gurgaon in Haryana.

Earlier, the NGO handed over 127 houses to slum dwellers who were uprooted from different parts of the Capital as a result of the ‘Clean Delhi’ initiative launched by the Delhi government.

The slum dwellers, who were relocated, received empty plots of land against payment of Rs 7,000.

John Mathai, national director of World Vision India, says: “World Vision has been working in Delhi for the past five years catering to the needs of 1.10 lakh people living in 10 slums and resettlement colonies.”

He adds: “Our latest housing initiative is being taken up under the area development programme, which has taken shape after the Delhi government started relocating people living in slums to the outskirts of the city.” This, he adds, resulted in many families being shifted to open fields. They were left to fend for themselves without a roof on their heads.

Inspired by the World Vision initiative, the relocated people also pitched in for their houses, but in easy installments of Rs 250 and Rs 313 per month, spread over a period of 12-16 months depending on the size of the plot. The plinth area of each house is 12
sq mt.

Besides this initiative, World Vision has taken up a number of activities in 110 districts, which is almost one fourth of the districts in India, Mr Mathai said.

The NGO is involved in several sectoral interventions in areas of health, income generation, enterprise development, skills promotion, vocational training, universal primary education, clean water, debt relief, and girl child.