There should be a comprehensive plan for Low Income Groups (LIG) and Middle Income Groups (MIG). Here we focus on the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) housing issue in detail. Almost 40% of Punekars reside in almost 500 slum settlements! How do we ensure a dignified life for almost half the city’s population? How can we safeguard their rights and provide them with basic civic amenities? How can we help bring them into the social and economic mainstream?  Honest implementation of the Slum Rehabilitation Act can transform these habitats into centers of innovation and optimism.

Engaging residents as stakeholders and ensuring fair profits for private construction companies are pivotal. However, achieving this demands substantial political will and support not only from the residents but also their more affluent neighbours.

Moreover, restructuring commercial spaces and establishing a robust public transport system are essential to encourage affordable housing development on the city outskirts.

Vote bank politics,local goons and rent seeking slum landlords, red tape, lack of trust between the slum citizens and the system, lack of awareness of the slum dwellers about their rights and the benefits of redevelopment are some of the main issues. Overcoming this will take massive political will and bureaucratic execution. And that will only happen if All citizens of Pune decide and demand that this transformation should take place.

Even when such Slum Rehabilitation Schemes (SRS) are undertaken, they fail because they are not designed keeping the rest of the city that surrounds it in mind – with education, health, employment, public transport being the main ones.

They also fail because the practices of the communities, its economic engine, and how they integrate with the larger city is ignored. They fail because the communities themselves are not involved in the design and decision making process.  The SRA schemes implemented in Pune have been very few and  provide little empirical knowledge at an implementation level.

So it is imperative to look to historical and practical lessons from the development of the SRA in Mumbai and other cities in the world. We must bear in mind that an important problem with the SRA is that it is still a slum by slum approach where only those slums that are lucratively located are taken up for redevelopment. First the city needs to come out with a holistic approach as to how they envisage a ‘housing for all’ strategy where all slums get a fair chance of being redeveloped to provide better housing. This can only be achieved where you have good data sets and up to date spatial information.

Then it is important to involve all stakeholders and have several rounds of discussions before freezing the plan. Instead of ‘one glove fits all’, there should be a range of options worked out based on the location, densities, land values, land ownership, reservations as per DP etc. which will allow the city to identify the most vulnerable slums.

An approach which will help integration of these slums into mainstream housing will help ensure that All are included and no one is left behind There are a lot of Union and State government schemes that can be tapped in to make Pune slum free i.e. to give every last Punekar the dignity she deserves