On Ground At The Largest PM Awas Project Delivering 30,000 Homes To Women Labourers In Solapur

Laxmi Kunpaate has spent all her life in dilapidated shanties, moving across different slums, in the town of Solapur, in Maharashtra.

Having Telugu origins, her ancestors migrated as mill workers to find decent livelihood opportunities at a time when Solapur was home to several textile industries.  

She now works as a beedi kargaar (worker), while her husband toils as a daily wage worker at a nearby readymade garment factory, often working 12-hour shifts that keep him away from home most of the day.   

On a regular day, she can be seen occupied in rolling beedis (local Indian tobacco cigarette), inside her dimly lit hut, constructed from metal sheets, with no windows, at the only corner receiving a faint light filtering through the door opening.

She has been living on rent in this hut since the last nine years, with her husband and three kids.

On asking her about the choice of making beedis instead of getting other work, she says that this is a skill she learnt from her mother since childhood, and not just her, but most women in her community are also engaged in the same work.

She says, “My husband makes a daily wage of Rs 350, but to cover our rent of Rs 2,000 and support our children, I also contribute. I manage to make 1,000 beedis a day, earning Rs 200.”

“Ye kaam basti se hota hai. Yaha paani nahi aata, 5 din mein ek baar aata hai, toilet ke liye baahar jaana padta hai. Bacho ko kaun leke jaayega? Bhaut mushkil hai, isliye ghar pe rehna padta hai. Kabhi bhi makaan malik jaane ko bol sakta hai, ghar khaali chodna ya bacho ko akele chodna sahi nahi hai. Yeh gali bhi sahi nahi hai, har tarah ke log aa jaate hai idhar,” she tells Swarajya.

(I have to be at home, to take care of kids, and the hut. There is no proper water supply, water is available once in 5-6 days. There is no toilet, we have to make use of the common toilet which is behind. Who will take the kids there when needed? Leaving the house, or leaving kids alone is not safe, as the area keeps having all kinds of people).

“Ab naya ghar mila hai, vaha pe sab acha hai. Aur ghar nahi badalna padega, pakka makaan mein hum acha kaam bhi kar sakte hai. Bacche bhi ache se reh aur padd sakte hai,” she says, while describing the recently allotted house to her as part of a mass housing project carried under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban).  

(We have now got allotment to a new pucca house, from where we can work better and our children can also live and study properly.)

Laxmi is among the 30,000 beneficiaries, who has received a home to her name in the Ray Nagar housing, in Kumbhari, 12 km away from the town, which was inaugurated by Prime minister Narendra Modi at the beginning of 2024.

The initiative has allowed for many such daily wage workers, involved in unorganised sector, to come out of dismal living in slums and own a quality home ensuring proper living standards.  

Navigating through narrow lanes flanked by windowless slums, most women, like Laxmi, are engaged in the beedi industry, where they are given the raw materials, and finished products are given back to karkhana (factory).

As for many households, their livelihoods depend solely on the meager earnings generated from rolling beedis in Solapur.

Located in south-western Maharashtra and bordering Karnataka, Solapur is a city which blends culture and languages of Marathi, Kannada and Telugu.

Once a hub for cotton textile manufacturing and beedi industry, the town attracted migrants from neighbouring states. However, the closure of mills since the 1980s left most of these workers jobless, forcing them into informal labour work.

Today, most men work in the informal powerloom or garment industry, while around 65,000 women roll beedis for roughly 200 factories. Others work as helpers, ragpickers, or street vendors, while they continue to live in slums and makeshift shelters in clusters sprawled around the town.

Laxmi adds, “I am fortunate that my kids, will be away from these streets and will get a chance to have a better life. I hope new job opportunities will come up nearby, making it easier for us to make a living.”

The largest Affordable Housing Project

On 19 January 2024, Prime Minister Modi handed over keys to 15,024 labharthi (beneficiaries) in phase-1 of the housing project, which has emerged as the largest affordable housing project for economical weaker sections (EWS). In total, 30,000 houses have been constructed on a 350-acre area at a cost of Rs 1,831 crore.

Apart from being the largest, what makes it unique from any other rehabilitation or redevelopment project, is the community driven initiative, who chose the land and housing model, along with the participation of the state and private entities, all of which received support of the Centre’s PMAY, making this into a successful project.

Managed by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) under the Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) model, it is the first such project conceived by the beneficiaries and developed by private entities under a public-private partnership (PPP), states officials from the MHADA.

The project includes anganwadis, healthcare, grounds, water and solid waste management facilities. Plans also include opening incubation centres, industrial clusters, and training centres to create more opportunities for the workers.

Ninety per cent of the allocated homes are under the names of women in the households, who will own these tenements of 300 square feet sizes, costing Rs 510,000, of which, nearly half of the amount will come from the PMAY and the state.

Lata Daasri, another beedi kargaar, is among the beneficiaries who received the house key from the Prime Minister during the ceremony.

“For the past 12 years, this process has been going on, and only in 2017, when the project was approved, we understood that all of us have done something very big. Since then, we have waited for the day to move into the home.”

The Long Struggle To Get These Homes

The roots of this initiative stretch back over a decade, mostly led by women, who focused on getting a decent dwelling and basic amenities for their families.

Different sections of informal workers, typically earning daily wages between Rs 300 to Rs 400, united to form societies through collective efforts of former CPI(M) state secretary Narsayya Adam, along with Nalinitai Kulburgi, who continued to draw attention to the dire living conditions of these communities.

In 2011, Adam and Kulburgi established the Ray Nagar Federation, aiming to unify these groups. "Within a year, 30,000 workers joined us and contributed Rs 6,000 each to purchase land in Kumbhari," Adam said.

Kulburgi (Tai) tells Swarajya, “For years, we walked through narrow lanes, visiting every shanty to assess living conditions and inform women to come together, gather their details and try to make them aware of the efforts. Many times, we lost people whom we met, since they were living on rent and there was no security on their stay.”

“Finally, seven different societies were formed based on areas and the nature of work, so that nobody is missed,” she added.

The societies managed the land, required paperwork, and got private agencies for construction model. However, political complexities kept hindering the progress.

When Devendra Fadnavis assumed office as chief minister in 2014, the federation approached him for support. Putting politics aside, Fadnavis held meetings to expedite the project. He not only aided in the project but also prioritised securing assistance from the central government.

With the project approved in 2019, efforts began to register all beneficiaries, a task fraught with challenges including filing and loan approvals.

Syed Mahtab Alam, director of Number Tree and VVRPL, the private financial and development agencies overseeing the project, tells Swarajya, “The success of this project is built on massive level of cooperation with the banks, agencies, and the community. We partnered with eight nationalised banks, that supported the disbursements of the loans.”

“Given these were daily wage workers, it was unlike traditional loan setup, as they had no ITR filings or credit score. Instead, we had to do in-depth background studies on the documents available, based on which we prepared SOPs, where instead of ITR documents, government sanctioned income certificates were used to process these loan files.”

Swastik Pujari, tasked with understanding the ground conditions, tells Swarajya, “The process involved convincing bankers, and also explaining the process to the beneficiaries. Based on their daily earnings, they never had anything prepared for such a process. A team of 30 people had to be on ground to meet all beneficiaries, assist with form completion, organise documents, and assure banks of loan repayment reliability.”

Beyond the financial challenges, the project has introduced new construction technologies to maintain the delivery timeline and ensure cost efficiency, with use of Mivan technology, using aluminium shuttering framework.

This allowed for the construction of a cluster of 36 homes across three floors in just nine days. Overall, there are 833 such clusters spanning both phases.

What Will Change?

In the slum settlements, many youngsters have dropped out of their studies and started working early. They believe that pursuing education is futile in a town with limited job opportunities. Instead, they opt to learn work skills available early on to support their families.

However, many are anticipating the transition who still ensured to get their next generations out of this misery.

Rehanan Nazeer Ustad eagerly awaits the finalisation and receipt of keys for her new home. She currently packs mithai boxes on informal contracts for a nearby sweet shop, while her husband runs a butcher shop.

Despite residing in difficult conditions, they have prioritised their children's education to prevent them from falling into similar circumstances as others.

Their son is completing his Class XII, and daughter is in Class X . She says, “We have always wanted to work, of any kind, but never got great options in this town.”

“These surroundings are insecure and experience illicit activities. All kinds of people are here since there is no regulations, and these areas have always been neglected. Who would want to enter?”

As they have only faced issues and challenges that come up with living in these settlements for years, they are still contemplating of the changes.

“We have always tried to keep our kids away from these activities, and wish the new housing provides a safer environment, where they can get an opportunity to experience and live, just like how we see other people living in cities.”

“My son is interested in getting a diploma in civil construction and is also good in computer related work. Our daughter also wants to get into nursing, or become a doctor if god's grace is with us. I hope, at the new area, the training facilities will open soon, to support their dreams.”

Large-scale initiatives like these, particularly targeting weaker sections, can serve as inspiration for social housing projects, specifically, in the growing cities of India, where at the initial stages, there is availability of land and resources.

Projects of this scale face numerous complexities, often leading to delays, or worse, failure. In this case, however, the machinery worked at each layer, from the local administration ensuring income documents, to the chief minister taking the project to the Centre, and the Centre delivering the housing units, with private partnership.