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10. The need to provide right to shelter is not peculiar to India alone but is a global problem being faced by all the developing and developed nations. In 1980 the United Nations General Assembly in its Resolution No. 35/76 expressed the view that an international year devoted to the problems of homeless people in urban and rural areas of the developing countries could be an appropriate occasion to focus attention of the international community on those problems. In Resolution No. 37/221 of 1987 the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless was adopted and request was made to member States to sustain the momentum generated during the programme of the year and to continue implementing concrete and innovative activities aimed at improving the shelter and neighbourhoods of the poor and the disadvantaged and requested the Secretary-General of the UNO to keep it informed periodically of the progress achieved. At the close of the international year the General Assembly received and noted in Resolution No. 42/191 the reports of the executive director of the U. N. Centre for Human Settlement entitled "Shelter and services for the poor - a call to action". It recognised that adequate and secure shelter is a basic human right and is vital for the fulfillment of human aspirations and that a squalid residential environment is a constant threat to health and to life itself, thereby constituting a drain on human resources, a nation's most valuable asset. The General Assembly expressed deep concern about the existing situation in which, in spite of efforts of Government at the national and local levels and of international organisations, more than one billion people find themselves either completely without shelter or living in homes unfit for human habitation; and that owing to prevailing demographic trends, the already formidable problems will escalate in the coming years unless concerted and determined efforts are taken immediately. As a consequence, Global Strategy for Shelter to the year 2000, including a plan of action for its implementation, monitoring and evaluation was chalked out and its objective would be to stimulate measures to facilitate adequate shelter for all by the year 2000. It requested the Executive Director of the Centre for Human Settlements to prepare a proposal for such a global strategy and called upon the Commission of Human Settlements to formulate the strategy for consideration by the assembly. In furtherance thereof, guidelines have been laid to take steps at the national level which was accepted by the Assembly. Guidelines which are relevant for the present purpose are as under

"2.... The objectives should be based on a comprehensive view of the magnitude and nature of the problem and of the available resource base, including the potential contribution of men and women. In addition to finance, land, manpower and institutions building materials and technology also have to be considered irrespective of whether they are held by the public or private, formal or informal sector
3. The objectives of the shelter sector need to be linked to the goals of overall economic policy, social policy, settlement policy and environmental policy

17. Mutual cooperation and exchange of information and expertise between developing countries in human settlement work stimulate and enrich national human settlement work."

(Vide Encyclopedia of Human Rights by Edward Lawson.)

12. In Encyclopaedia of Social Work in India (Vol. 2) at p. 82 it is stated that supply of housing in India does not fully meet the present needs of the population whether in terms of location, size, tenure, type or facilitation. The share of housing sector in India's economy is fluctuating from year to year. Of the total housing stock of 7.44 crore dwelling units available in 1971 in rural areas, 0.80 crore were unserviceable kutcha, 2.44 crores were serviceable kutcha, 2.79 crores were semi-pucca and only 1.41 crore units were pucca. The housing accommodation as a whole in the rural areas as dwelling units is inadequate. With ever-growing population and migration of poor to urban areas for livelihood, slums are getting escalated and resultantly with the passage of time housing problem is becoming increasingly acute. Under Minimum Needs Programme provision of house sites and construction of houses for rural landless poor was envisaged in the Sixth Plan 1980-85 which continued in the Seventh Plan. Finances ar provided for construction of the houses under the planned expenditure

13. Indira Awas Yojana is evolved to provide housing accommodation on war footing exclusively for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Their appalling housing condition is judicially taken notice of by this Court upholding the pragmatic approach of Chinnappa Reddy, J. in Kasireddy Papaiah v. Govt. of A.P. 1975 AIR(AP) 269 : 1975 (1) APLJ 70] as well in the following words "That the housing conditions of Harijans all over the country continue to be miserable even today is a fact of which courts are bound to take judicial notice. History has made it urgent that, among other problems, the problem of housing Harijans should be solved expeditiously. The greater the delay the more urgent becomes the problem. Therefore, one can never venture to say that the invocation of the emergency provisions of the Land acquisition Act for providing house sites for Harijans is bad merely because the officials entrusted with the task of taking further action in the matter are negligent or tardy in the discharge of their duties, unless, of course, it can be established that the acquisition itself is made with an oblique motive. The urgent pressures of history are not to be undone by the inaction of the bureaucracy. I am not trying to make any pontific pronouncements. But I am at great pains to point out that provision for house sites for Harijans is an urgent and pressing necessity and that the invocation of the emergency provisions of the Land Acquisition Act cannot be said to be improper, in the absence of mala fides, merely because of the delay on the part of some government officials."