Chalakudy is a town and a municipality in Thrissur district in Kerala state of India, spread over an area of 25.23 km2. Chalakudy is 45 km north of Kochi and 269 km from the state capital, Trivandrum. Geographical Classification of the region is Idanadu. Chalakudy is situated on the banks of Chalakudy River .It is the base camp for travellers to Athirappilly and Vazhachal waterfalls. Chalakudy lies on Kochi-Salem national highway 544 (old no 47) and is a main commercial centre in the district.

Chalakudy is a prime destination of tourists, especially those who love nature. The best season to visit Chalakudy is December to March and also in monsoon season. Chalakudy is blessed with scenic beauty and refreshing weather, has all the amenities of a suburb and is well connected by National Highway and Railways. It is being developed as a high demand residential area and the cost of land is shooting up. New IT park, Kinfra park @ Koratty, easiness to reach Kochi and Thrissur etc. make Chalakudy a real estate attraction. The Kannampuzha Devi temple is situated some 3 km away from the Chalakkdy Railway station.

Population and its growth pattern

As of 2011 census, Chalakudy had a population of 49525 in 12567 houses. The children (0-6 age) population of Chalakudy UA is around 9.24 % of total Chalakudy UA population which is lower than national urban average of 10.93 %.

Sex retio

The sex ratio of female to male in Chalakudy UA was found higher with figure of 1079 females against national urban average of 926 females per 1000 males. For children (0-6 age), girls were 948 per 1000 boys in Chalakudy urban region against national average of 902 girls per 1000 boys.

Area and Population

With a total area of 25.23 Sq.Km, Chalakudy town accounts only 0.83% of the geographical area of the Thrissur district. The municipal area has been divided into 36 electoral wards. As per 2011 Census, the population of Chalakudy municipality is 49525 which constitute just 1.6% of the district population.

Housing issues

Housing is an important determinant for quality of life of people. It is the most basic need of human being after food and clothing that needs to be addressed on priority. Within municipality housing is an activity which is mainly driven by individuals to provide itself with an appropriate shelter. With the increase in population, number of houses has also recorded an increase.

3.1 Housing

As per census 2011 there are 12576 numbers of households in Chalakudy Municipality. The housing shortage is obtained by considering the total number of houses including those coming under kutcha category and the total number of households. According to construction material used and considering the durability of structure, the houses exclusively dedicated to residential category have been classified broadly into 3categories, namely Pucca, semi pucca and Kutcha. The houses are classified as pucca and moderate depending on the type of roofing provided. Therefore this does not reflect the actual structural stability of the building. The Kutcha buildings are structurally poor and needs reconstruction according to the modern standards of convenience. The moderate houses will last some more years if suitably and timely maintained. The Socio Economic survey indicates that people, at all levels, give top priority for quality of housing.

3.2 Housing schemes implemented in ULB

3.2.1 EMS housing schemes

The EMS Housing Scheme envisioned with the objective that there should be no homeless family in the state. EMS total Housing scheme launched by Government of Kerala aims at providing house sites to all landless families and houses to all houseless families coming under the BPL category. The scheme is implemented by the municipality with the support of government.  The Scheme also aims at repairing of Kutcha Houses including those built less than 1 Lakh housing scheme. This is a purely state funded Scheme. Under this scheme, 65 families were benefitted in Chalakkdy Municipality  till this year.

3.2.2 Janakeeyasoothranam Scheme

In Kerala State, the planning process adopted was based on top down approach till the 8th Five Year Plan. However, subsequent to 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts, the Kerala State Legislature enacted the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 repealing the previous Acts. The decentralised planning process was enacted by the devolution of functional and fiscal powers to the Local Self Government Institutions. This gave sufficient statutory backing to the decentralised planning process and the new planning process was introduced in the State through the launching of “Janakeeyasoothranam” in a campaign model on 17th August 1996 by structuring the Ninth Plan as People’s Plan. In order to cater the housing needs of people, ULB 224 families

Table 3.1 Janakeeyasoothranm houses

3.3.3 Asraya project

While implementing the poverty alleviation programmes, it has been observed that the programmes implemented by the Government and other agencies never reach the rock bottom poor. These people, who live in utter distress and despair, constitute a very small number in the society - the bottom 2% of the total population. Kudumbashree designed a project called Asraya - Destitute Identification Rehabilitation and Monitoring Project for the rehabilitation of destitute families. Destitute families are identified using a transparent risk index framed by the Mission. Individual needs of the family are identified through a participatory need assessment. The project envisaged to address lack of food, health problems including chronic illness, pension, educational facilities to children, land for home, shelter, drinking water, safe sanitation facilities, skill development, employment opportunities, etc. Under this project, Chalakkudy Municipality has given home for 18 destitute people.

3.3  Slum improvement programmes implemented

3.3.1 Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY) :-

            The Vambay was launched in 2001 to improve the urban poor’s shelter conditions. The scheme has the primary objective of facilitating the construction and up gradation of dwelling units for slum dwellers and providing a healthy living condition. The Central Government provide as subsidy of 50% the balance % shared by the State Government and Urban Local Body.

            The objective of Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana is primarily to provide shelter or up gradation the existing shelter for people living Below Poverty Line in Urban Slums, with a view to achieve the goal of “Shelter for all”. The objective is also is utilize this initiative to achieve the Habitat goal of slum less cities. Equally important is the objective to provide not just shelter for the urban poor but also a healthy and enabling urban environment, to help them to come out of their poverty level. To this end, ther is need to dove – tail VAMBAY with NSDP and SJSRY to ensure that shelter delivery, environment improvement and income up gradation for the urban poor are synergized.

            The target group under VAMBAY will be BPL families who are possess adequate shelter. However preference is to be given to people below Poverty Line.

YEAR WISE STATUS

Table 3.2 VAMBAY houses

3.3.2 Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP)

IHSDP is for housing and infrastructure development in urban slums by combining the centrally sponsored schemes of VAMBAY and NSDP. IHSDP is to be implemented in all towns and cities identified as per 2001 census except cities/towns covered under JNNURM (Trivandrum and Cochin Corporations)

The major components of the scheme are housing shelter up gradation sanitation road drains footpath social amenities like construction of primary health centres anganwadi building etc. Provision for model demonstration projects, slums improvement and rehabilitation projects, reorientation activities etc. is also advisable components under IHSDP. The funding pattern of IHSDP is 80:20 shared by central and state governments. The state share would equally shared by the state government and participating ULB. Kudumbashree is the Nodal Agency for IHSDP. This project got sanction from central Govt in 2007 covering 166 families.

3.4 Urban poor & poverty

The magnitude of urban poverty in the state is increasing. Nine risk factors have been considered for determining poverty of households. Those with less than 5 cents of land or no land, with dilapidated house or no house, no sanitary facilities, no access to safe drinking water within 150 metres, woman- headed household, no regular employed member in family, socially disadvantaged group, mentally retarded, disabled, chronically ill member in the family and families without colour TV have been considered as factors for determining the poverty. Any family having 4 or more such risk factors is classified as family at risk of poverty.

13031. increase in poverty is due to the stagnation in manufacturing industry resulting in lower income for urban dwellers. Due to rapid increase in land prices and construction costs, a good number of urban people in Kerala are forced to live in slums. Availability of drinking water and sanitation facilities are grossly inadequate. Urbanization has an important impact in social and economic development and is associated with many problems.

Urbanisation is related to issues like migration from villages to towns and relative cost of providing economic and social services in towns of varying sizes, providing housing, water, sanitation facilities, transport and power. Only one-fourth of the households in slums have electricity. While rural poverty is getting concentrated in the agricultural labour and artisans households, urban poverty results in casual labour households. Kudumbashree Mission had played a role in alleviation of poverty to a certain extent. The Kudumbashree Mission is facilitating the capacity building process of the poor women  for the last may years.

 3.4.1 General condition of BPL population

As per the available data, the number of households below the poverty line is 14606. The existing economic standard of people in the municipal area as obtained from Socioeconomic survey shown that average Monthly Income per house is Rs 6611/- and average Monthly Expenditure per house is Rs 6253/-which shows that there is marginal difference between income and expenditure .Their earning capacity is very less. The BPL population is quite substantial and constitutes nearly 50% percent of the total population. There are wide variations in the number of people living below the poverty line across the municipalities.

Ward wise number of BPL households in Chalakudy Municipality

Table 3.3 BPL families                                          source: BPL survey 2009