PANAJI: The government has constituted a committee of secretaries as per the guidelines of the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) with the state Development Commissioner as its chairman and the secretary for Town and Country Planning and the secretary for Urban Development as its members.

The committee has a liberty to co-opt secretary for panchayats, secretary for revenue and others depending upon the situation. Similarly the secretaries for municipal administration, transport, district collector and chief engineer of the Public Works Department may also be co-opted by the committee.
It may be recalled that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation had launched the guidelines on slum-free city planning called as Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) to tackle the problem of slums in a definitive manner. The RAY aimed at making the cities slum free and envisaged addressing the problem of slum dwellers and urban poor in a definitive and holistic way.
The RAY is expected to include slum upgradation, redevelopment, rehabilitation and creation of new houses. The scheme also aims to provide central assistance to the states willing to assign property rights to slum dwellers. The RAY envisages that the state government would prepare a state slum-free plan of action.
The preparation of legislation for assignment of property rights to slum dwellers would be the first step of this project. The plan of action would be in two parts; part I as regards the upgradation of existing slums and part II regarding the action to prevent new slums. In part I, the state would need to survey and map all existing slums in selected cities that is Panaji, Vasco and Margao as proposed by the state government under RAY.
In part II, the plan would need to assess the rate of growth of the city with a 20 year perspective along with actions proposed to be taken to obtain commensurate lands and promote the construction of affordable EWS houses. This part also needs to make necessary legislative and administrative changes to enable urban land expansion, and in town planning regulations to legislate reservation for EWS/ LIG housing in all
new developments.
The committee of secretaries is expected to meet every fortnight to review progress with the local bodies and implementing agencies on all related matters. The committee may further recommend specific relaxations required for implementation to be taken up with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.