After food, UPA proposes homes for rural poor

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections due next year, the UPA government is ready with another flagship, entitlement-based programme, this time promising homes to the rural homeless.

The draft National Right to Homestead Bill, 2013, which hopes to enable this welfare measure is ready for inter-ministerial consultation and will be circulated among ministries and states on March 18.

The Right to Homestead Bill is being readied, even as another ambitious entitlement-based legislation —the National Food Security Bill, 2011 —continues to hang fire and is yet to get Parliament's nod. Both laws could be electorally crucial for the Congress ahead of key state elections this year and Lok Sabha polls due next year.

The Homestead Bill is part of the charter of demands made by the Ekta Parishad —an activist movement comprising thousands of community-based organisations and individuals —in Agra last year, to which Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh had agreed. "We are fulfilling an important commitment made as part of the Agra agreement," Ramesh said. The Bill has been drafted in consultation with the Ekta Parishad.

The draft, prepared by the Rural Development ministry, promises every landless and homeless poor family in rural areas a homestead "of not less than 10 cents" (0.1 acre or 4,356 sq ft), much on the lines of its marquee Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) that promises 100 days of employment to each rural household every year.

The ministry hopes to introduce the bill in the monsoon session of Parliament.

The draft Homestead Bill, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, says the right to a homestead has to be enforced within a specified time period, but not exceeding five years from the date of enactment of the law.

'Homestead' is defined as a land area "of not less than 10 cents", consisting of a "dwelling" with "adequate" housing facilities. Each rural poor family that does not hold any agricultural land or homestead will be eligible under the proposed legislation, including families living on rent.

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