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
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
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Write a short note a changing means of production and increased rural poverty
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q1(e)). View answer →
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Is BSUP a poetry or culture scheme?
No. It is a housing and basic-services programme for the urban poor.
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Did the schemes end slums?
They built stock and some services. Informal rental and new migration continued.
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