The Urban Community Development (UCD) wing, the neglected wing of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) would get more attention for uplift of the poor and downtrodden sections of the society, GHMC commissioner Somesh Kumar has said.

More than one-third of Hyderabad’s population reside in slums and other poor settlements. Due to lack of awareness, the poor suffer from many inadequacies in terms of access to basic services and socio-  economic needs.

It was therefore necessary to formulate and implement policies and programmes to integrate the slums in the city with the mainstream society, both in terms of infrastructure provision and social and economic development, he said while interacting with newsmen here on Thursday.

To encourage self-help groups to establish small businesses to provide self-employment opportunities to the unemployed youth in the city, the GHMC had drawn up several new initiatives for the women SHGs and youth, the commissioner said and added that the number of SHGs within the GHMC Limits would be increased from the present 4.5 lakh to seven lakh this year.

He said that the GHMC would encourage the SHGs and unemployed youth to set up as many as 100 reverse osmosis water plants by involving 1,000 youth.

The purified potable water would be supplied through water cans in slums and other places, especially in  those areas where polluted the drinking water was polluted, at affordable costs.

The GHMC would help the SHGs and youth through bank linkages to set up the reverse osmosis water plants.

Two multi-skill training centres would be set up in each of the five GHMC zones for  imparting training in various fields to the unemployed youth to help them secure jobs  such as physical fitness trainers, cab drivers, security guards, etc., Somesh Kumar said.

The GHMC would launch a special drive to increase the registrations of girl children under ‘Bangaru Talli’ this year as the registrations under the scheme were not  satisfactory so far. As part of the special drive, the GHMC would conduct awareness programmes in slums and weaker section colonies, the commissioner said. 

Under the scheme, only 1,926 girl children had been registered in the City so far, he added.