the goan I network
PANAJI
Director of the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) Tariq Thomas IAS on Wednesday said that all homeless people in the state could not be covered under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) as the central government scheme only applies to urban homeless.
As such he explained that homeless people who are located in villages that come under the Panchayat and not the Municipality, could not be adopted under the NULM.
As “The Goan” had reported on Wednesday, nine months after being fined by the Supreme Court (SC) for not taking care of the needs of Goa’s “urban homeless”, the state agency entrusted with the task is still bumbling along, with no concrete plan about where or how to shelter its homeless.
On February 26, 2019, the Goa State Urban Livelihoods Mission (GSULM), nodal agency to implement the NULM, signed an MoU with NGO Street Providence, which already has homeless-people shelters across the state.
GSULM agreed to fund Street Providence for looking after the state’s urban homeless, thus finding a solution to implementing NULM. Despite signing the MoU, the GSULM neither provided the NGO the homeless people to shelter, nor the funds. This is why, Street Providence withdrew from the MoU as of June 10.
Thomas admitted that the GSULM had not been able to release the funds to Street Providence as these were central government funds. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much flexibility since the funds are from the centre and can’t be released unless there are urban homeless,” he said.
As of now, the agency doesn’t have a record of how many urban homeless are there in the state. Thomas said that the agency would not seek to conduct a survey either, as the status of “homeless” people was dynamic and always-changing, so one survey wouldn’t give a clear idea. However, he said that as and when municipalities found homeless people, they would add them to the list.
Thomas also said that the GSULM was interested in signing another MoU with Street Providence, as the NGO was doing a lot of work to rehabilitate the homeless. However, he said that the GSULM would not be able to reimburse the NGO for March and April, and that they would have to start from scratch with a new agreement.
Thomas also stated that the whole process of identifying urban homeless and releasing funds, was a slow one.
The state is allocated Rs 6 lakhs a year to implement the NULM. Goa has already been fined Rs 1 lakh in September 2018 for not utilising these funds.
