PRAXIS Training

IGSSS (HCRCs Central and North Delhi) and PRAXIS organised a PRA (participatory reflection and action) training for the entire CityMakers team and community workers at the Chabi Ganj shelter for homeless citizens on March 24, 25 and 26, 2011.

A few pictures…

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DDA demolishing 14,000 jhuggis in Gayatri Nagar

As reported by Abdul Shakeel

At around 9.30 am on March 23, 2011, 2,000 police personnel along with 40 to 50 DDA officers began the demolition of approximately 14,000 jhuggis (slums) of people living in Gayatri Colony, near Patel Nagar, New Delhi. If we multiply 14,000 by 5 (assuming there are 5 members in one family), we get a mind-boggling figure of 2 lakh individuals! This makes it one of the largest demolition drives in Delhi’s recent history. Before the the demolition began, not a single notice was served these people who have been living in the area for almost twenty years. There is also no talk of providing alternative accommodation to them, as mentioned in the Master plan of Delhi. So far, 5 bulldozers have been deployed for the demolition, and 700 houses demolished.

The population of the colony comprises a large number of women and children who are among the most marginalized sections of society. The sudden demolition of houses without any prior notice has put the slum residents, over 500 of whom are pregnant women, in an insecure situation whereby their health and life are at grave risk. Some children are taking their annual examination.

HRLN will be filing a public interest litigation in the Delhi High Court tomorrow and is hoping for a stay order by tomorrow. Incidentally, one of the IGSSS staff members, Meenakshi, is also residing in the same colony.

Enumerating the Homeless – Census 2011

The Census, conducted once every 10 years, is a crucial exercise in India. The data generated through this countrywide survey is considered sacrosanct by academic researchers and policymakers alike. One would imagine that, given the long term policy decisions that depend entirely on statistics generated during the Census, those responsible for it would do everything humanly possible to make it error-free. However, like most other government-managed programmes, the Census is conducted in a shockingly slipshod manner.

This post is not about the general carelessness with which Census officials go about conducting the survey, though that is the bigger problem. It is about the innumerable shelter-less citizens of this country, whose future depends on Census figures. It is no secret that the official statistics available on the numbers and percentage of homeless families in India are grossly inaccurate. The numbers, on which every scheme for the poor depends, are always underplayed.

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The positive bit about Census 2011 was that the Census authorities agreed to take the support of NGOs working with the shelter-less to enumerate the latter. A plan was drawn to conduct the Census of the homeless in Delhi on two consecutive nights – February 27, 2011 and Fenruary 28, 2011. There was talk of getting 30,000 enumerators to count the homeless on a single night. Civil Society Organisations and NGOs were asked to provide volunteers to guide the teachers during the survey. A mapping exercise, too, was held a night before the Census was to begin. A large number of female teachers turned up to enumerate the homeless “in the middle of the night”. One read news stories applauding the determination of the teachers despite the ‘dangerous elements’ that lurked on the dark streets of Delhi.  

On paper, it looked almost like the Census officials and teachers had achieved an impossible feat – that of counting every homeless citizen in Delhi. And that in the face of innumerable odds.

The truth, however, was very different. Yes, there were teachers who worked very hard. Yes, there were officials who showed great sincerity. Unfortunately, these were the exceptions. IGSSS, which provided volunteers to help in the process on three consecutive nights, and sent regular reports to the Census authorities on the pockets in the city that were left out, organised a Press Conference on March 5, 2011, to tell the real story of the Homeless Census in Delhi.

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Following is the Press Release issued after the conference:

Census of homeless citizens in Delhi a farce; final numbers will not be accepted

New Delhi, March 05, 2011: The Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS), a part of Shahri Adhikar Manch – Begharon Ke Liye (SAM-BKL) [SAM-BKL is a coalition of 30 organisations working on homelessness and urban poverty in Delhi ] , organised a press conference at the Press Club of India on March 5, 2011, to review the Census of homeless citizens in Delhi. Census enumerators in Delhi surveyed the city’s homeless on the 27^th and the 28^th of February, following a mapping exercise on the 26^th of February. NGOs working with homeless citizens were asked to help the Census officials and enumerators in this whole process. In spite of the Census authorities agreeing to carry out the enumeration exercise on 2 days instead of the originally decided 1 day, and later extended it by another 1 day to cover left out areas (March 01, 2011), the process was far from satisfactory. 

The speakers at the conference included Miloon Kothari from the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), Indu Prakash Singh from the Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS), Sanjay Kumar from Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA), Prashant Rawat from CHETNA, Zaved Nafis Rahman from Butterflies and  Parmod Kumar from GATI.

NGO volunteers say that teachers conducting the survey saw it as a punishment and a job that had to be completed as quickly as possible by devising innovative short-cuts. Some of these included putting multiple unrelated homeless families living on the same footpath in the same form (treating them as one family), taking down the names of tent shelter residents directly from the attendance register (and treating them as a single unit) and, in some cases, cooking up imaginary information on non-existent people on their own – one of the female enumerators’ husband was seen sitting alone on a railway track and completing one form after another, with no homeless person in sight! In several cases, the enumerators kept NGO volunteers waiting for hours, and began the enumeration process after 10 pm (the enumeration was officially supposed to have begun at 7 pm). In other places, they didn’t reach the designated spots at all. 

Several charge officers switched off their phones just when the survey was to begin, making it impossible for NGO volunteers to contact them. A large number of enumerators refused to interact with homeless citizens saying they were intoxicated – this, in spite of several enumerators being drunk themselves while on the job (eg. at Nangloi and Old Bridge, Loha Pul). They were also extremely abusive in some areas – not only towards NGO volunteers, but towards the homeless themselves.

At the tent and permanent shelters for the homeless, enumerators left at 10:30-11 pm, when the shelters are only half full, when they had earlier been told that the enumeration was to go on till early the next morning. Several shelters were not covered at all (such as the ones in Kashmiri Gate – Chabi Ganj and Ganda Nala with capacities exceeding 100 residents each), and a number of areas have still not been covered. To mention a few cases – at Azadpur, Transport Nagar, approximately 1,000 homeless citizens were left unenumerated; in Dwarka, over 5,000 construction workers have been left out; in the Nilothi area, the mapping exercise showed 1,500-2,000 homeless people, out of which only 60 have been enumerated; in North East Delhi, an estimated 3,000 people have been left unenumerated. If one were to make an exhaustive list of those left out, it would be endless.

Indu Prakash Singh, Technical Advisor – CityMakers Programme, IGSSS, said that the whole enumeration process was a farce, and that the NGOs involved in the exercise as volunteers would submit a memorandum to the President of India, and send copies of the same to the Registrar General of India (RGI), the Governor and Chief Minister of Delhi, saying that the entire survey of the homeless was flawed, and the final figures unacceptable. He said the Census authorities and the government would have to make amends now, and that organizations working with the homeless would not wait for another ten years to see improvements in the enumeration process.

As part of a study conducted by AAA in 2,000, over 52,000 homeless citizens were counted on Delhi’s roads. However, the 2001 Census came up with a figure of only 24,966 homeless persons in the city. In 2008, an IGSSS study found 88,410 homeless citizens in Delhi. The actual number is estimated to be almost double, considering the limitations of a headcount. 

Miloon Kothari from HLRN said that the Census of the homeless had turned out to be another form of corruption. He said that while Delhi had made more progress than other metropolitan cities when it came to putting up shelters for the homeless, the Census exercise showed that the government was not serious about tackling the homelessness issue. He said that because of inaccurate figures for the homeless in the city, the shelter issue too would be affected, considering the number of shelters to be set up in a city is decided on the basis of population (1 shelter per one lakh urban population).  Shivani Chaudhry, also with HLRN, said that the long term (housing-related) policy implications of thousands of people being left out during the Census would be grave.    

Sanjay Kumar from AAA said that NGOs’ support had been sought not to make the work of the enumerators easy, but to legitimise the enumeration process. Several NGO volunteers were asked to sign papers saying the process had been completed satisfactorily, in spite of gaps in the exercise. Mr Kumar called the survey of the homeless a case of ‘willful neglect’ by the authorities. He said that during the planning process, which began early in February 2011, NGOs working with the homeless had even offered to provide direct assistance to the Census authorities in the enumeration work. However, this offer of help was rejected, and the NGOs were told that their role would be limited to facilitating the process. The result is that the survey of the homeless was finally conducted in an extremely slipshod manner, with several areas still left out.

Where the enumerators reached, the survey process was flawed; where they did not, they survey did not take place at all. The final figure of the homeless in Delhi that comes out after the counting, will not be anywhere close to the actual figure. Even if the figure exceeds a lakh, which is extremely unlikely, it will still be grossly inaccurate. NGOs working with the homeless say that in future, school teachers should not be involved in surveying the homeless ever, because of their sheer lack of will to do the same. Also, the number of days set aside for this exercise must be increased to at least a week or ten days, if one is to arrive at an accurate number. If possible, Census authorities can be asked to repeat the process within this year, if the government is serious about wanting an exact figure for the homeless in Delhi, and elsewhere.

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What is needed is a change in the State’s priorities, and a foolproof mechanism to implement high-sounding plans. A mechanism like that should be put in place long before the exercise itself begins. Those conducting the Census should receive extensive training before they go out in the field. The number of days to conduct the census of the homeless needs to be extended to at least a week. Also, the Census authorities need to take NGOs a lot more seriously, and should entrust them with far greater responsibilities than just acting as ‘volunteers’, for those working voluntarily alone will have the requisite mindset, sensitivity and patience to conduct such an exercise.

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News links on the Census story:

• http://www.hindustantimes.com/Census-fails-to-count-homeless/Article1-669978.aspx#
• http://in.news.yahoo.com/huge-number-destitutes-left-census-process-ngos-20110306-033100-245.html 
• http://www.hindu.com/2011/03/07/stories/2011030758590200.htm 
•  http://www.acralive.org/2011/03/census-of-homeless-in-delhi-another.html 
• http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/-The-census-of-the-homeless-which/articleshow/7636456.cms
• http://deccantimes.com/north/huge-number-of-destitutes-left-out-of-census-process-ngos 
• http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/article1505259.ece
• http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110303/lf_afp/indiapopulationhomeless_20110303154925
• http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia/2011/03/2011317520831449.html#
• http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/working-through-the-night-to-count-the-homeless/192335

Holi at the Regarpura Shelter for Women and Children

The CityMakers Collective celebrated Holi last week at the Regarpura Shelter for Women and Children (in Karol Bagh, Delhi), run by IGSSS. Here are a few pictures of the celebration. Enjoy!

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Major Concerns about the UID Project

The Government of India’s ambitious project to provide a Unique Identity (UID) Number to every resident of the country on the basis of biometric data has raised several concerns among rights activists and civil society groups for various reasons. Following are a few issues raised by independent law researcher, Dr. Usha Ramanathan, in the course of two meetings held at the IGSSS head office in Delhi, on January 25, 2011 and March 14, 2011:

[While the first meeting was attended by representatives from the Mother NGO – St. Stephen’s Hospital, the second meeting saw no participation from either the MNGO or UIDAI officials (both had been invited for the same). Had a UIDAI representative been present at the meeting, a number of doubts regarding the UID issue would have been cleared by now. IGSSS sent a list of questions on the UID project to the MNGO and the UIDAI, following the meeting.

The meeting on Jan 25, 2011 was attended by – Jyoti Gupta (IGSSS), Feroze Ahmed (IGSSS – HCRC Central Delhi), Smriti (MNGO), Dr. Amod Kumar (MNGO), Bipin Kumar Rai (IGSSS), indu prakash singh (IGSSS), Dr Usha Ramanathan (Activist and Researcher), Gopal Krishna (Activist and Researcher), Miloon Kothari (HLRN), Shivani Chaudhry (HLRN), Anjali Borhade (Disha Foundation, Public Health Foundation of India – PHFI), Meeta (IGSSS – HCRC North Delhi), Neelam (IGSSS – HCRC North Delhi), Ambrish Rai, Sandhya (IGSSS)

The meeting on March 14, 201 1was attended by – Dr Usha Ramanathan (Law Researcher), Kulisha Mishra (PRAXIS), Jyoti Gupta (IGSSS), Meeta (HCRC North, IGSSS), Nadim (HCRC Central Delhi, IGSSS), Ankur (HCRC North Delhi, IGSSS), Jayanta Bhakat (Humana), Ravinder Kumar (Humana), Feroze (HCRC Central Delhi, IGSSS), Rakesh (HCRC North Delhi, IGSSS), indu prakash singh (IGSSS), Abdul Shakeel (SAM-BKL), Kamlesh Saxena (HCRC Central Delhi, IGSSS), Sandhya (IGSSS)]:

• Authentication
• Feasibility Studies
• Not a proof of nationality, domicile
• Tagging individuals – fear of India turning into a police state
• Companies involved do not have a clean track record
• Process not foolproof: iris scans, fingerprinting often do not work
• UIDAI says it is voluntary; may not be true
• Connections with NATGRID, PII, NPR etc (policing)
• Problem of introducers: what are their liabilities?
• Date of issuance like erasing the past history of an individual

1. Apart from the problems with the process of the issuance of UID cards, there are problems with the concept itself. There is a major fear within the civil society that the UID may eventually be used for monitoring and tracking purposes, and will seriously limit individual freedom. The stated purpose of the UID, which is to make accessing basic services simpler for the common person, is completely at odds with the perceived real purpose – which is that of policing.
2. Biometrics: The creation of biometric data on such a large scale is not feasible. Biometrics can work only under controlled conditions and on a much smaller scale. Iris scans will not work in millions of cases because of malnutrition-induced cataract. Finger prints, too, would generate a lot of noisy data which may ultimately be unusable. There are no existing standards for the creation / collection of biometric data in India and consequently no way to monitor the process.  [Excerpt from ET Report – July 17, 2010 – “a passport applicant with worn-out fingers may present his newly-issued UID number as a conclusive proof of identity, but could find the application rejected. The authentication process using a fingerprint scanner could classify the applicant’s worn-out fingers as a so-called ‘false negative’ .A December 2009 report by the UIDAI Committee on Biometrics, says there is no estimation of the extent of this problem. The fingerprint quality, the most important variable for determining accuracy, has not been studied in depth in the Indian context,” the report says. Subsequently, a pilot study was done, and 250,000 fingerprints were collected and analysed. The committee’s conclusion: “There is good evidence to suggest that fingerprint data from rural India may be as good as elsewhere when proper operational procedures are followed and good quality devices are used … (but) the quality drops precipitously if attention is not given to operational processes.”]
3. Concept tests and authentication studies for the UID system have not been conducted, or if they have, not been made public, which leads the civil society to suspect that it is really being carried out as a large-scale experiment.
4. The multinational companies to which the UID work has been outsourced do not have a clean record.
5. While the UIDAI says that getting a UID card or number will be voluntary, service providers themselves may make it compulsory for people to avail of their services. Human rights activists feel that it is not actually intended to be voluntary.
6. The UID process involves an introducer, whose liabilities have not been made clear. One can either use one of 14 documents to enrol for a UID card / number, or enrol through an introducer, who ‘introduces’ or signs for the one seeking a number.
7. The UID card itself says that it is neither proof of a person’s domicile nor of his/her citizenship, making its role or benefit to the holder suspect. The same is true for the Homeless Cards issued by the Delhi Government under Mission Convergence.
8. The UID, once issued, will act as the primary identification card for any individual. However, this will render the existing proofs / ID cards of an individual useless. A fresh date of issuance for a UID card will be like erasing the past record of a person’s residence in a certain area / city. This may be especially harmful to the homeless. The UID issuance process witnessed by Dr. Ramanathan did not involve the collection of any information apart from a person’s biometric details, name, age, gender etc. and the Beghar Card issued to him/her earlier. Other proofs of identity like ration cards, voter ID cards  etc. were not seen, even in cases where people had these. 
9. Other national governments, most recently in the UK, have scrapped similar projects. In the UK, the National ID programme, which was aimed at tackling fraud, illegal immigration and identity theft, was criticised for being too expensive and an infringement of civil liberties. The UK government cited higher costs, impracticality and ungovernable breaches of privacy as reasons for the cancellation of the NID project.
10. The UIDAI does not say if a cost-benefit analysis for the project has been done, and whether it is feasible in terms of costs to the exchequer. If the reasons for scrapping the UK NID project include ‘higher costs’ then surely there is also a need to examine India’s UID project from the angle of expenses.
11. Incomplete information given to organizations involved: At the operational level, the UID project has been outsourced to NGOs, banks etc, none of which have been given adequate information about their liabilities and other issues. This problem is especially apparent in the case of introducers, many of whom have ‘introduced’ hundreds of homeless citizens for the purpose of enrolment. The liabilities of these introducers have not been made clear.
12. Technologically unfeasible: The project also may not be technologically feasible. The iris scan was introduced to tackle the problem of the noisy data generated by fingerprinting. However, the iris scan technology may not be available to all the service providers that will eventually use the UID number. This may pose authentication-related problems.
13. No monitoring system: While the UID authorities have outsourced the enrolment work to NGOs and other agencies, their own officials have not put a monitoring system in place to ensure accuracy.
14. Undelivered cards: The UID cards for the homeless are all sent to the NGOs responsible for their enrolment. Finding the individuals in whose names the cards have been made, however, is a difficult task, with the possible result that many of these cards may never reach the intended beneficiaries. A foolproof system needs to be put in place to prevent this.
15. Changes in contact information: In case of a change in address, phone number etc., individuals themselves will have to intimate the UID authorities from time to time. However, this may not always be possible, especially when it comes to the poor.
16. Authentication: A major problem is that of authentication. There is no clarity on what will happen if the biometric data is inaccurate or does not work because of technical problems, at the time of accessing services. If the authentication process does not work, would the concerned individual be treated as an outsider, or as being ineligible for accessing services?
17. Dismantling of social security: There is a fear among activists that the government will eventually dismantle all subsidies / social security mechanisms by means of the UID. After the inclusion of cash transfers for LPG, kerosene and fertilizers (through UID) in Budget 2011, this fear has only grown stronger. The major problems with cash transfers are that (a) these are not insulated against inflation (b) many of these transfers will be conditional (c) cash transfers work well only with smaller populations and in places where the service delivery systems are extremely efficient.
18. Financial Inclusion: Having a UID number itself does not guarantee access to services. The only thing it is currently said to be linked to is financial services. Financial inclusion means providing a bank account to every person. The reasons why banks are interested in the project (and to open zero balance accounts) are that (a) the primary customer of the UID is the government (b) government money will keep rolling into these accounts through various schemes
19. Monitoring Banking Correspondents: However, many big banks are slowly backing out because carrying out transactions for the poor will ultimately involve banking correspondents or intermediaries, monitoring whom on such a large scale will be difficult. In such a situation, the role of banking correspondents will be taken up by Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs). There is also  talk of making it sustainable. Will it entail service charge from the poor for withdrawing money?

Questions for UIDAI:

• For the state government: The Delhi Government has not made any commitment to give any entitlements / rights to CityMakers (homeless citizens) on the basis of the UID. Is the government willing to make such a commitment?
• For the state government: Can the government / UIDAI give a written guarantee that no social security system (PDS etc) will be dismantled after the UID is introduced on a large scale
• What happens if the number of people enrolled (through a certain NGO) does not match the final number of UID cards received? How many UID cards are not finally generated after enrolment, and what is the reason for this? Is it because of noisy fingerprints or some other problem with the biometric data? Do we then need to call these people again (if they can be found) for enrolment?
• What happens to those cards that cannot be delivered? Will the NGO involved be answerable for these? IGSSS has been receiving UID cards for the homeless (approx. 36 so far) but it has so far been difficult to locate most people. If these people cannot be found, what happens to their cards?
• Is there a default arrangement for those individuals whose biometric data is not accurate and who have a problem during authentication?
• What are the introducer’s liabilities?
• Can those who have already introduced a sizeable number of people withdraw from the role of introducer and be freed of any liabilities that they were not informed of before being assigned the task.
• For the UIDAI: Is the Homeless (Beghar) Card data being incorporated in the UID database as well? If yes, what is the mechanism being followed for the same? The UID card for homeless citizens mentions the Survey Frame Pocket (SFP) number. Are the survey details, too, being included in the UID data?

 [IGSSS has sent the above questions to the UIDAI, and has sought clarifications on the same]

Who we are and What we do

The CityMakers Collective – a part of Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS) – is a group of individuals working on urban poverty issues, particularly homelessness, in Delhi. We run several programmes to improve the living conditions of homeless citizens, or ‘CityMakers’ as we call them, using a participatory approach. Significant among these are:

• Shelter Management
• Advocacy and policy-related interventions
• Community Outreach Programmes
• Livelihood Trainings
• Education and Healthcare Programmes
• Community Kitchens

In the course of our work over the past few years, we have felt that there is no comprehensive body of literature, or research documents, on urban homelessness in the country. Though we can’t, by ourselves, fill this gap entirely, we can do our bit by making available all the information we have or receive on a daily basis, on the internet.

We hope this blog is useful for everyone interested in knowing more about homelessness-related issues in the country and the abysmal conditions homeless citizens are forced to live in; and also helps generate new ideas on tackling related problems.

CityMakers Collective