MUMBAI: South African Housing Minister Lindiwe N. Sisulu handed over on Tuesday the keys of houses to pavement-dwellers at a simple function in suburban Mankhurd. Dr. Sisulu, who visited the families living on the pavement in South Mumbai earlier in the day, told the large gathering that she was particularly touched while handing over the keys to the pavement dwellers and it was symbolic for her to join the festivities of people who have waited for so long for their homes.

"What touched me most was the courage and perseverance on the faces of people who had waited for 20 years to get their houses and what I saw was hope personified. It gave me hope that we will be able to produce the kind of people you have in your country," she said. South Africa and India have a lot in common specially as far as urban poor are considered and since 1992, there have been a lot of exchange of ideas and visits between the communities in the two nations.

Eighty-three houses were allotted to pavement families living on three streets of South Mumbai but there is a 20-year history of struggle behind it, according to Shehnaz of Mahila Milan, a women's collective. There are over one lakh people living on the pavement in Mumbai and for women like Khatija Ansari, who received the keys to her new house, today is a red-letter day. "We have been living on the pavement since the last 32 years," said Khatija who hails from Bihar. She has a 10-member family.

The Maharashtra Government provided land for the housing while construction was facilitated by the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), an NGO. Mahila Milan, the collective which was formed in 1986, by women from pavement families, actually played a role in designing the 225 sq.ft flats and its members contributed upto Rs 20,000 a family from their own savings towards maintenance of the houses.

For the first time in the city, pavement dwellers were given houses and it is now the policy of the State Government to resettle all the pavement families in two years, according to Principal Secretary, Housing, N. Rama Rao. Terming it as a revolutionary step, Mr. Rao said the Chief Minister made a statement recently in the Assembly that all pavement-dwellers would be rehabilitated. He said that the families lived in rooms as small as 9 sq.ft and often 10 to 12 persons were crowded into that small space.

The government had built 50,000 houses for slum-dwellers in the last 10 years and shortly it would come out with a scheme to rehabilitate all those who were entitled to houses and who were living in Mumbai on or before January 1, 1995. Maharashtra Minister for Social Justice, Chandrakant Handore, said the Government was willing to make available maximum land to NGOs such as SPARC and to the National Slum Dwellers' Federation for re-housing slum-dwellers. A. Jockin, president, NSDF, which also played a role in re-housing pavement-dwellers, said that the houses were in the names of the women. No one wanted free housing, he said and poor people were willing to contribute to their own homes, if the Government made land available.

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