http://southasia.oneworld.net/weekend/on-a-mission-to-empower-the-urban-poor
OneWorld South Asia: What are the reasons that results in large proportion of urban poor- finding it difficult to access services?
Rashmi Singh: Large numbers of urban poor are the migratory population who come in search of better life and job to cities. First of all, finding their feet in a big metro like Delhi becomes very difficult, as they have to struggle with the basics and are sometimes not able to meet two square meals in a day.
They are mostly engaged in the unorganised sector and live in slums or in the resettlement colonies. The crucial aspect missing is the social bonding and the absence of a governance structure, unlike in rural areas. Whether strong or weak, the presence of local governance structures, local panchayats help the rural communities raise their issues, and community channels through which they feel counted.
In the urban system people do not have a voice mechanism and they become invisible. There is the whole question of identity and being rooted to the community to which they belong. When the first step is itself weak, the question of being able to navigate into the second step, into governance structure becomes difficult.
The urban poor also face the problem of proving their identity that becomes one of the major bottlenecks in accessing services. Getting their ration cards, election and other identity proof means producing many more documents which is like a vicious cycle. So while they may exist physically their problem to the accesses is compounded by facts each of them related to the other. They are fighting a battle to count. The absence of traditional institution mechanisms, community channels also makes the process more cumbersome and difficult for the urban poor to access benefits.
OWSA: We understand that Mission Convergence is surveying the poor habitation of the Delhi Urban Poor. Please throw some light on this and give an estimate of the vulnerable population in Delhi?
Rashmi Singh: Under Mission Convergence for the first time in Delhi we did the exercise of the identification of the vulnerable population. So far the system in the capital was not based on the identification of the counting at the household levels, based on survey methodology. The BPL list which one would find existing in many states has been based on some survey, in Delhi it was not. Those who wish to apply; fill up a form and given income certificate, they would be considered whether entitled to a BPL ration or not.
So the food and civil supplies department has largely been the custodian of data meant for poor and also for many of the other departments, and so if they have to ride on the scheme meant for BPL they would have to ask the civil supplies department. But here again there was no identification done in a proactive manner.
While conducting the exercise of identifying the urban population we found that many deserving people who should have been classified as BPL were actually left out of the system and ironically were drawing the ration which was meant for above poverty line, whereas many drawing ration under below poverty line were actually ones who should not have qualified. So we decided to go to the field and cover the areas of geographic vulnerability. And it was not difficult to do that because we mapped off the areas looking at all our slums and Jhuggi Jhopri clusters, FG and H category of clusters, and found 90% of the urban poor reside in these areas.
We conducted the survey in two phases and covered 9 lakh household and then 5 lakh more households-in total 60 lakh people. In the first two phase of survey of the 9 lakh we saw around 5 lakh were in social and occupational vulnerability. Later when we did this estimation five lakhs were in the broad category of vulnerability and there were around two and half lakh households which were classified as most vulnerable equated with the Antyodaya. One lakh homeless people are still in the process of being surveyed, after which we will be able to clearly come up with a figure.
OWSA: What value do civil society organizations add to the government initiatives by providing social benefits to the vulnerable sections?
Rashmi Singh: The government has its strengths and limitations. It can provide regulatory mechanisms, funding support, resource support, linkages, technical support, over site mechanism. The civil society organisations, on the other hand have a lot of strength in terms of bringing to the government certain areas of flexibility and outreach in terms of community participation, engagement, and mobilisation.
When it comes to actual mobilisation of the community and reaching out to those who are most vulnerable, going door-to-door, bringing people into the folds, spreading information and awareness, doing counseling, and doing a need assessment, we found that engagement of civil society organisations has been far more beneficial than a normal governmental channel. Also these civil organisations have managed to reach out to such areas which were not covered in government system.
The solution couldn’t be that we add more staff and more departments and have more offices; rather we decided to adopt the public-private partnership model which was cost effective also. There was the flexibility that we provide them funds, and they could rent out spaces, going into the interiors right in the midst of the community. On the other hand if we would have had to do it alone like for capital assets, buildings, creating structures, and hiring people, then it would have taken five years. So the flexibility in the operation and cost effectiveness was what made us engage the NGOs and other community organisations.
So we see the civil society engagement very important in Mission Convergence as it is been all about GON, NGO and community and private sector partnership. This is a unique model in which there has been the spirit of partnership between all the sectors. So it brought out lot of innovative elements, strength of each of these partners into the programme which has added to the strength of the programme as a whole.
OWSA: We are aware that Mission Convergence has proactively set District Resource Centers in all nine districts (Samajik Suvidha Sangam Kendras) of Delhi. Please tell us what progress has been made and the challenges faced during implementation?
Rashmi: There are these district resource centers at district levels and these are housed in the office of the Deputy Commissioner. The Deputy Commissioners were earlier doing revenue related work and regulatory work. But with Mission Convergence the government has given them a developmental approach, where they would also be looking at the social developmental needs of a community living in the particular district. These district resource centers were actually provided to be run by district nodal NGOs.
The Nodal NGOs were not only housed in the office of the Deputy Commissioners but they also became a kind of regular partners in this exercise which meant that in every district they had to call and organise a collective forum of the various departments involved which were basically looking at any welfare schemes.
This means involvement and coordination of departments like social welfare, health, education and women and child, labour and urban development, and food and supplies. All these departments were sitting together in the district convergence forum meeting which is organised every month. This is a break from the usual. Earlier people at district level were not talking to each other; every department was doing its own thing. Bringing the entire department together became a very powerful tool for us where the problem was raised department wise, and the NGOs, the resource center became a coordinating body.
The resource center became a body where the information of the district regarding the vulnerable people is housed and then they do the district level planning as to what programmes can be targeted and to look at the eligibility of the family to the specific programme looking at the vulnerability and matching it with the different programmes. It has become a very important institutional mechanism to actually reach out and give a response which is need based.
In terms of challenges, since it has been a major departure from departmentalised functioning that we have been used to, the transition has not been easy and there has been a lot of resistance, there has been the huge problem of changing the mindset of stakeholders. Also people look at their own small little role, but not at the broader vision, of what we are trying to do as a family. It has been a huge challenge, rather then scheme wise how to make all the departments look at it like a family. The transition has been very challenging.
There are three-four models that are being followed:
On a mission to empower the urban poor
26 June 2010
Mission convergence, is a unique initiative by the government to bring about qualitative improvement in the lives of the urban poor. Rashmi Singh talks about the convergence model applied to bring various beneficiary and welfare oriented entitlement schemes to the urban community at the district level and to help them find their identity.
Rashmi Singh is heading a unique initiative of Delhi Government namely the Mission Convergence-a programme for social justice and empowerment. A 1989 batch UTCS officer, she has been instrumental in several policy level changes for social development in Delhi. Her Public Private Community Partnership modules for social development have been hailed as replicable models of inclusive governance and adopted by the centre & several state governments.
She has won several awards including the Stree Shakti Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar Award 2009 by the President of India on International Women’s Day, 2010 this year for her unique contribution to the field of gender empowerment, the Women of Excellence Award by FICCI in 2009, Commonwealth Association Silver Award in 2006.
This interview is part of a special series of interviews “Behind the City Lights’ brought to you as a collaborative initiative of OneWorld South Asia (OWSA) and Urban Health Resource Centre (UHRC). The special series is aimed to enhance focus from different quarters on the subject of equitable health provision in cities in the international year of ‘Urban Health’OneWorld South Asia: What are the reasons that results in large proportion of urban poor- finding it difficult to access services?
Rashmi Singh: Large numbers of urban poor are the migratory population who come in search of better life and job to cities. First of all, finding their feet in a big metro like Delhi becomes very difficult, as they have to struggle with the basics and are sometimes not able to meet two square meals in a day.
They are mostly engaged in the unorganised sector and live in slums or in the resettlement colonies. The crucial aspect missing is the social bonding and the absence of a governance structure, unlike in rural areas. Whether strong or weak, the presence of local governance structures, local panchayats help the rural communities raise their issues, and community channels through which they feel counted.
In the urban system people do not have a voice mechanism and they become invisible. There is the whole question of identity and being rooted to the community to which they belong. When the first step is itself weak, the question of being able to navigate into the second step, into governance structure becomes difficult.
The urban poor also face the problem of proving their identity that becomes one of the major bottlenecks in accessing services. Getting their ration cards, election and other identity proof means producing many more documents which is like a vicious cycle. So while they may exist physically their problem to the accesses is compounded by facts each of them related to the other. They are fighting a battle to count. The absence of traditional institution mechanisms, community channels also makes the process more cumbersome and difficult for the urban poor to access benefits.
OWSA: We understand that Mission Convergence is surveying the poor habitation of the Delhi Urban Poor. Please throw some light on this and give an estimate of the vulnerable population in Delhi?
Rashmi Singh: Under Mission Convergence for the first time in Delhi we did the exercise of the identification of the vulnerable population. So far the system in the capital was not based on the identification of the counting at the household levels, based on survey methodology. The BPL list which one would find existing in many states has been based on some survey, in Delhi it was not. Those who wish to apply; fill up a form and given income certificate, they would be considered whether entitled to a BPL ration or not.
So the food and civil supplies department has largely been the custodian of data meant for poor and also for many of the other departments, and so if they have to ride on the scheme meant for BPL they would have to ask the civil supplies department. But here again there was no identification done in a proactive manner.
While conducting the exercise of identifying the urban population we found that many deserving people who should have been classified as BPL were actually left out of the system and ironically were drawing the ration which was meant for above poverty line, whereas many drawing ration under below poverty line were actually ones who should not have qualified. So we decided to go to the field and cover the areas of geographic vulnerability. And it was not difficult to do that because we mapped off the areas looking at all our slums and Jhuggi Jhopri clusters, FG and H category of clusters, and found 90% of the urban poor reside in these areas.
We conducted the survey in two phases and covered 9 lakh household and then 5 lakh more households-in total 60 lakh people. In the first two phase of survey of the 9 lakh we saw around 5 lakh were in social and occupational vulnerability. Later when we did this estimation five lakhs were in the broad category of vulnerability and there were around two and half lakh households which were classified as most vulnerable equated with the Antyodaya. One lakh homeless people are still in the process of being surveyed, after which we will be able to clearly come up with a figure.
OWSA: What value do civil society organizations add to the government initiatives by providing social benefits to the vulnerable sections?
Rashmi Singh: The government has its strengths and limitations. It can provide regulatory mechanisms, funding support, resource support, linkages, technical support, over site mechanism. The civil society organisations, on the other hand have a lot of strength in terms of bringing to the government certain areas of flexibility and outreach in terms of community participation, engagement, and mobilisation.
When it comes to actual mobilisation of the community and reaching out to those who are most vulnerable, going door-to-door, bringing people into the folds, spreading information and awareness, doing counseling, and doing a need assessment, we found that engagement of civil society organisations has been far more beneficial than a normal governmental channel. Also these civil organisations have managed to reach out to such areas which were not covered in government system.
The solution couldn’t be that we add more staff and more departments and have more offices; rather we decided to adopt the public-private partnership model which was cost effective also. There was the flexibility that we provide them funds, and they could rent out spaces, going into the interiors right in the midst of the community. On the other hand if we would have had to do it alone like for capital assets, buildings, creating structures, and hiring people, then it would have taken five years. So the flexibility in the operation and cost effectiveness was what made us engage the NGOs and other community organisations.
So we see the civil society engagement very important in Mission Convergence as it is been all about GON, NGO and community and private sector partnership. This is a unique model in which there has been the spirit of partnership between all the sectors. So it brought out lot of innovative elements, strength of each of these partners into the programme which has added to the strength of the programme as a whole.
OWSA: We are aware that Mission Convergence has proactively set District Resource Centers in all nine districts (Samajik Suvidha Sangam Kendras) of Delhi. Please tell us what progress has been made and the challenges faced during implementation?
Rashmi: There are these district resource centers at district levels and these are housed in the office of the Deputy Commissioner. The Deputy Commissioners were earlier doing revenue related work and regulatory work. But with Mission Convergence the government has given them a developmental approach, where they would also be looking at the social developmental needs of a community living in the particular district. These district resource centers were actually provided to be run by district nodal NGOs.
The Nodal NGOs were not only housed in the office of the Deputy Commissioners but they also became a kind of regular partners in this exercise which meant that in every district they had to call and organise a collective forum of the various departments involved which were basically looking at any welfare schemes.
This means involvement and coordination of departments like social welfare, health, education and women and child, labour and urban development, and food and supplies. All these departments were sitting together in the district convergence forum meeting which is organised every month. This is a break from the usual. Earlier people at district level were not talking to each other; every department was doing its own thing. Bringing the entire department together became a very powerful tool for us where the problem was raised department wise, and the NGOs, the resource center became a coordinating body.
The resource center became a body where the information of the district regarding the vulnerable people is housed and then they do the district level planning as to what programmes can be targeted and to look at the eligibility of the family to the specific programme looking at the vulnerability and matching it with the different programmes. It has become a very important institutional mechanism to actually reach out and give a response which is need based.
In terms of challenges, since it has been a major departure from departmentalised functioning that we have been used to, the transition has not been easy and there has been a lot of resistance, there has been the huge problem of changing the mindset of stakeholders. Also people look at their own small little role, but not at the broader vision, of what we are trying to do as a family. It has been a huge challenge, rather then scheme wise how to make all the departments look at it like a family. The transition has been very challenging.
There are three-four models that are being followed:
- One is the public-private partnership and community partnership
- Use of information-technology, to be able to provide better sense of transparency and accountability into the system, to track the development, the outcomes
- The integrated approach, the inter-sectoral which we call the single-window, intervention which range across various issues.
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