Revision summary
BSUP served the urban poor in large JNNURM cities with housing and basic services. IHSDP did similar work in smaller urban centres. The aim was shelter, water, and sanitation, not cultural branding. Relocation and weak livelihoods limited gains. The urban poor need in-place services plus work, not only distant units.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
BSUP and IHSDP were JNNURM-era housing and services schemes for the urban poor. BSUP targeted cities; IHSDP targeted smaller urban centres. They were not a programme for an ‘urban poet’. They were a state attempt to put water, toilets, and shelter on the slum map.
Body
What the two programmes were
- Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) funded integrated housing and civic services in large mission cities.
- Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) extended a similar housing-plus-services idea to smaller towns.
- The package typically meant dwelling units, water, sanitation, and some community infrastructure.
Sociological promise
- Ambedkar’s city as exit needs a roof, not only a wage. Tenure and toilets are caste and gender issues in the slum.
- Women’s reproductive and public-domain safety improve when toilets are not a night field.
What went wrong in practice
- Relocation to peri-urban edges broke jobs, a socio-spatial harm like heritage beautification evictions.
- Eligibility lists missed tenants and recent migrants.
- Quality and maintenance lagged; a house without a livelihood is not inclusion.
- A. R. Desai’s class eye: without cheap well-located land, the poor remain a residual of metropolitan growth.
Note’s verdict
- The schemes named the urban poor as citizens of infrastructure.
- Delivery often produced peripheral colonies rather than upgraded livelihoods in place.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD BSUP[BSUP large cities] --> HS[Housing water toilets] IHSDP[IHSDP smaller towns] --> HS RL[Relocation lists jobs] --> FL[Delivery gap] HS --> UP[Urban poor citizenship]
Conclusion
BSUP and IHSDP were mission programmes to house and service the urban poor in big and small towns. They mattered as a rights vocabulary of water and shelter. They fell short where relocation, lists, and jobs were ignored. Call them urban-poor housing missions, never a poet’s scheme.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Write a short note a changing means of production and increased rural poverty
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q1(e)). View answer →
-
Is BSUP a poetry or culture scheme?
No. It is a housing and basic-services programme for the urban poor.
-
Did the schemes end slums?
They built stock and some services. Informal rental and new migration continued.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
-
2020 · Q6(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
How can skill development programme induce social change? Illustrated.
More from this topic
Q6(b) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks · Solution
Synchronise the developmental programmes and social change in India, and describe them through visible and lived experiences
Rural and Agrarian transformation in India
• State-led developmental plans in India act as tools for social engineering to break traditional inequalities. • Land reforms altered agrarian structures, but uneven implementation created varied local realities. • The 1952 Community Development Programme aimed for rural uplift but often strengthened dominant caste power. • The Green Revolution drove agricultural modernization while widening regional and class gaps. • The 73rd Amendment transformed grassroots politics by empowering women and marginalized castes through reservations. • MGNREGA and welfare schemes improved rural bargaining power, reduced distress migration, and redefined state-citizen ties. • True progress requires pairing economic growth with substantive social equality to overcome persistent structural exclusions.
Q8(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
What are the Indian government's schemes launched for poverty alleviation after the United Nation's Declaration of 'Sustainable Development Goals - 2015' ? Briefly describe
Rural and Agrarian transformation in India
SDG 2015 became a frame for Indian poverty policy rather than a single new statute. PM-KISAN, Ayushman Bharat, Jal Jeevan and PMAY are major post-2015 launches. NFSA, MGNREGA and NRLM pre-date 2015 but were continued and digitised in the SDG era. POSHAN, PMGKAY and Ujjwala sit in the same toolkit. The package is broad; landless and informal workers still fall through title-based and insurance-based designs.
Q5(d) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
What are the major problems faced by the labour migrants while working in informal sectors of Indian States? Discuss.
Rural and Agrarian transformation in India
Interstate migrants in informal work are hired through contractors, not stable contracts. Wage theft, unsafe housing, and missing social security are the core problems. Women and children carry extra risks of harassment and lost schooling. COVID reverse migration exposed their civic invisibility. Portability laws and e-SHRAM are incomplete answers to a structural informality.