Introduction:

Urban Poverty Alleviation Cell under the umbrella of the Shillong Municipal Board was set up in the year 1991 to initially implement the Nehru Rozgar Yojana (NRY) followed by the Urban Basic Services for the poor (UBSP) and the Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme (PMIUPEP) and now under the Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY). The Main work of the cell is to identify the urban poor, work out appropriate strategies for proper implementation of the activities and programmes commensurate with the goals and objectives of urban poverty alleviation

Objectives:

• Operationalizing and implementing the strategy envisaged in the national plan for urban poor
• To focus on Integrated poverty alleviation by taking into consideration both social and economic indicators
• Addressing urban poverty alleviation through gainful employment to the urban unemployed or underemployed poor;
• Supporting skill development and training to enable the urban poor have access to employment opportunities provided by the market or undertake self-employment; and
• Empowering the community to tackle the issues of urban poverty through suitable self managed community structures and capacity building programmes.
• Empowerment of urban poor particularly women and make effort to bring them above poverty line
• To mitigate the vulnerability of slum dwellers
• Ensure proper implementation of urban poverty alleviation programmes

Approach:

•Identifying Need And Priorities of Urban Poor
•Improved Basic Services to the Urban Poor
•Development of Livelihood Promotion Models for the Urban Poor
•Capacity Building and Sensitization
•Monitoring and Evaluation.

Coverage :

The target population under SJSRY is the urban poor; those living below the poverty line as defined by the Planning Commission from time to time.

Components :

SJSRY have 5 major components, namely :
(1)Urban Self Employment Programme (USEP)
(2)Urban Women Self- Help Programme (UWSP)
(3)Skill Training for Employment Promotion amongst Urban Poor (STEP – UP)
(4)Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP)
(5)Urban Community Development Network (UCDN)

Programmes and Activities:

•Facilitating and promoting voluntarism and organizing community structures/groups;
•Preparation of socio-economic profile of urban poor. Coordinating the conduct of Slum, Households and Livelihoods surveys and maintaining database on the urban poor and their needs;
•Guiding and assisting the community in assessing its needs, organising community structures, developing a community vision, and formulating community development action plans;
•Working with the community to implement and monitor the progress of SJSRY and related programmes or activities;
•Identification of BPL and EWS beneficiaries for vocational training
•Preparation of health status of the urban poor and regular health check up for women and children, distribution of medicines
•Promotion of micro enterprise activities for gainful income generation through USEP central schemes
•Formation of thrift and credit societies and self help groups
•Establishing convergence and linkages Liaising with the sectoral departments to establish initial contacts with the community in support of their programmes;
•Assist Community Based Organizations in preparation of innovative projects
•Assessing skill needs of the urban poor, awareness generation, capacity building and facilitating skill development training and skill upgradation
•Facilitating community empowerment through community level training, information sharing, exchange of experiences, community skills enhancement programmes, etc.;
•Identifying suitable beneficiaries for self-employment ventures, preparing applications for securing bank credit and taking subsequent follow up with the Banks until final disposal of the applications;
•Regularly following up with the financed beneficiaries to monitor the progress of their self-employment venture as also the timely repayment of loans, etc. and
•Any other function for furtherance of the target of alleviating /eradicating urban poverty.

Staff of UPA Cell :

Community Structure :