Question

Question: Consider yourself as a member of parliament in your constituency. The government has approved 2 million dollars for you to use to undertake housing upgrading in your constituency. Discuss five possible challenges you are likely to face in the implementation of the project. You are also required to propose possible solutions to each of the problem.

Answer 1

The five possible challenges that are likely to face in the implementation of the project and their solution are-

(1) Inefficient land records

The land is the most important element in housing upgradation without which housing is impossible.

If the issues of land resources remain unresolved then there would be no point in framing housing models.

The problem is that land records are incorrect and ambiguous.

The registering of a land ownership involves three to four departments that are revenue department for textual records, survey and settlement department for the maps, registration department for the verification of encumbrances and the municipal authorities for urban land records.

The change in one record may not be updated by the other department leads to disputes in land ownership.

Another reason for incorrect records is because of people delay in land registration due to the tedious procedures involving four different departments.

This issue can be solved by-

·By adequate availability of land.

· By ambiguous record restricting strict policing of encroachment.

· By retention of title deeds.

   (2) Lack of cross monitoring

The implementation of all the housing schemes is handled by the government from the initiation to completion.

If the work is distributed among various government departments and private sectors with the involvement of beneficiaries in different stages of development, there must be cross monitoring between agencies within the system during various stages of work.

With the start of E-governance system the details of the projects should be available for public review so that work can be done properly.

This issue can be solved by-

· By efficient use of finance

·By proper change in the beneficiary list

· By implementing high quality of construction and design

  (3)       Non convergence of different institutes

Housing is one of the fields that requires coordinated effort from various institutes dealing with different services like the local government, development authorities etc.

Since most of the institutes work independent of each other and they are not updated with the progress of the projects which finally results in the delay of project.

It is one of the main reason for incompletion of mass housing projects and city development plans.

This issue can be solved by-

· Availability of serviced plots of land

· Efficient approval processes

· No delay in construction period

· Accurate records of documents available for the projects

(4) Inefficient identification of beneficiaries

Identification of beneficiaries requires detailed survey to be conducted to identify the deserving beneficiaries.

It is very time consuming and requires a lot of human resource.

The lack of monetary resources and technology are other key factors due to which proper surveys are not conducted.

This issue can be solved by-

Conducting detailed survey for identification of genuine beneficiaries with use of latest technology.

(5) Lack of accountability among beneficiaries

The most common issues in housing projects are lack of maintenance of common facilities and services.

The beneficiaries refuse to spend on the maintenance of common facilities provided to them.

It is due to the lack of beneficiary participation in the design, construction and financial contribution

This issue can be solved by-

It can be resolved by fixing the accountability of maintenance works to the beneficiaries.