Ministry of HUPA convenes meeting of States, UTs on shelters for urban homeless

Ministry of HUPA convenes meeting of States, UTs on shelters for urban homeless

The Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation has convened a meeting of the Chief Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories tomorrow i.e November 21, 2014 to discuss their action plans regarding provision of temporary and permanent shelters for homeless in urban areas of the country. This meeting has been convened in pursuance of the direction of the Supreme Court of India.

The Apex Court, in the matter of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) regarding shelters for homeless, on November 13, 2014 directed the Ministry of HUPA to convene such a meeting within ten days for taking stock of availability of shelters and file an affidavit within three weeks, on the way forward.

The direction of the Supreme Court came further to the filing of affidavits by some states and union territories in the matter where in the Court sought a detailed response from the Ministry of HUPA.

The meeting will discuss the number of people in states/UTs, number of temporary and permanent shelters available, future plans for construction and improvement of shelters and the steps taken by states/UTs to implement the Scheme of Shelters for urban homes under National Urban Livelihood Mission.

After eliciting the responses of states and UTs in the matter of night shelters, Minister of Urban Development and HUPA Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu will hold a day long session with the Chief Secretaries to discuss various initiatives of the central government pertaining to building of smart cities, provision of basic infrastructure in 500 urban areas, development of heritage cities, Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana (DAY) and Housing for all Urban Poor by 2022 besides issues relating to urban governance, urban reforms and capacity building.

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Villagers’ better Than Urbanites

Some times, I really wonder, of what use is all the education, all the knowledge that we accumulate? Education should make us, humans, it should fill in values in us, human values, but now the scenario is opposite. The more educated the person is the more selfish his thinking is, the more sick his mind is becoming. We don’t bother about the person living next door, we don’t bother to help somebody on the street, we don’t react when the whole system is corrupt, we don’t bother to just react, in any way to any of these things.

Fear to react; fear to help the other person in need, fear, fear and fear. This has become omnipresent now. Instead of love and compassion for the fellow being, we have developed suspicious mind towards others. And we are not to be blamed for this because, the situation has become so. Whether it is night time or day time, we fear to keep our doors open; sometimes we are forced to suspect those whom we think we they are our own.

Where are all the humans gone, where is all the humanness gone? I think though not educated like us though, though they don’t have worldly knowledge like us villagers are better than urbanites in many matters. In villages if anything happens to any one the whole village is there for him, to help him and to support him. Anything happens in any ones house, let it be good or bad, the whole village is there for them.

If politicians don’t keep up their promises, they don’t allow them to step into their village, they show enough guts, to ask them for what they are accountable. They sit together, decide together, what to do to, vote for whom and if not. Unity and humanness, compassion for the fellow beings understanding and standing together for others, if these are the qualities that a lay man, uneducated man has. We better remain uneducated, and have some humanness left in us, instead of being educated and inhuman.

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