A Rural-Urban relationship Committee was set up in the mid-sixties to detail the planning of the Urban Community Development (UCD) projects and examine the role of the local government bodies in implementing them. The Committee reported that there was a lack of awareness among the common people that the municipalities were actually created to serve their needs.
It suggested a need for constant discussion and evaluation of the various local problems and needs so as to help the people to realize and articulate their felt needs, to motivate change and encourage people to exercise their own initiative in planning and carrying out improvement projects. Based on these recommendations, the UCD programme was initiated by the Government of India.
The city of Cochin where this programme was implemented met with great success as compared to many other conventional programmes. This could largely be attributed to the recognition of the implications of mobilizing women for participating in community activities and for organizing income-generating activities as well as devising appropriate strategies for their implementation.
More than 160 community development activities, which include child welfare, youth welfare, housing, and other activities were involved in the UCD programme to promote the concept of participatory community development. The objectives of cooperative housing have been achieved in a different way in this UCD programme.
In Cochin Real Estate developments got a thrust much earlier due to the innovative urban development programmes implemented in this most happening destination in Kerala. No other city in Kerala had this unique privilege. Over and above the government programmes, the inflow of investment funds from overseas destinations was such that property prices never went down below a particular level.
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Post Edited (09-11-2009 03:57)
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