Thiruvananthapuram: Smart City not for the poor?

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Corporation has conducted hundreds of smart city meetings, but none of those has involved the ‘others’ - homeless people, street vendors, fishing community, unorganised workers’ communities or migrant labourers. Had the discussions ended last week as per the original plan, those in the marginalised communities would not have been consulted at all. Aspirations and demands of the poor are rarely considered when a city’s development is discussed, according to Sonia George, secretary, Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).

She pointed out how the phrase ‘slum-free city’ is often used in connection with such urban development programmes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna. “We should change our attitude towards the issue. We need to understand how the slums were formed. It has a history of migration, and there is a caste angle to it. Merely providing jobs will not solve the problem if these issues are not addressed,” she says. Issues like street vendors not getting a space to conduct their business or benefits of government schemes not trickling down should be addressed, she said.

The corporation funds the housing projects for the urban poor, and one cannot say that it has fully ignored its poor, said Costford joint-director P. B. Sajan.    He said the corporation could seriously think about providing livelihood especially to the women in such communities. The corporation did not schedule meetings with these sections as there were time constraints, said Mayor V. K. Prasanth. “The groups which were not covered will be reached out to, as soon as the consultants are finalised,” he said.