The Union Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Girija Vyas has announced that her Ministry is planning to set up a National Livelihood Mission to ensure livelihood to urban people especially urban poor. This shall be done through training and capacity building to promote entrepreneurship as well as generate employment.    

Girija Vyas was speaking at a two-day conference on ‘Innovations in Urban Governance’ in New Delhi on August 26. It has been organised with the Joint effort of Ministry of Urban Development, National Innovation Council and the World Bank.    

She lauded the efforts made by JnNURM cities to reserve at least 20 per cent budget for basic services for the poor. The Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development, Sudhir Krishna pointed out that India’s future growth stories will depend on planned urbanisation for which creating proper infrastructure in cities and providing basic services to the people is a must.    

The Chairman of the National Innovation Council and Advisor to the Prime Minister Sam Pitroda highlighted the need for using the services of domain experts and creating a list of best practices to improve the process of urbanization in India . He said the aim of the conference is to develop key recommendations on urban governance for further follow-up by the Ministry.