Activists demand better housing, employment for slum dwellers

Bengaluru: The Slum Janandolana Karnataka (SJK) recently launched its manifesto before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, formalising its demands and building pressure on the political parties.

The four-paged manifesto makes a varied set of ten demands on issues of employment, housing, health, labour and poverty. The Organisation insisted on formulating the National Urban Land Bank Policy, which would reserve  500 Acres of land in every corporation for slum dwellers. 

“According to our estimates, there are more than 40 crore homeless people nationwide. If the government cannot build homes for us, it should allot a 20x30 site like it does for big corporations,” said A Narasimhamurthy, state convenor of SJK.

The manifesto also sought to revoke the labour reforms implemented in 2020. The four new labour codes subsumed the earlier existing 29 labour codes.

Narasimhamurthy explained, “The reform has allowed for 12 hours shift instead of the earlier 8 hours.”

To deal with labour issues, the manifesto proposed the creation of a welfare board.

Speaking to DH, Narasimhamurthy claimed that while under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), urban homeless are being given homes, it is steeped in problems.

“To build a house in a city in Bengaluru, approximately 7.5 lakh is needed. Under the PMAY, the centre gives a subsidy of 1.5 Lakhs, while the states give around five lakhs. However, 1.38 lakhs are deducted as GST, leaving us with only twelve thousand received from the centre,” he added. Thus, the manifesto demanded the waiving of GST and increasing the grant to five lakhs. 

Discouraging rhetorical guarantees given by multiple parties, the state convenor demanded, “The country would need no special poverty elimination programs if our basic demands of food, housing, employment, education and health are taken care of by the government”.