By Our Correspondent
BERHAMPUR: Dr. Namesh Killemsetty, a young fellow from Berhampur has recently been awarded with the Alma H. Young Emerging Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association, an international professional organization for urban scholars, researchers, and public service providers based in USA for his research on slums in Ganjam district. He completed his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts Boston.
His dissertation titled, Assessment of Housing Mismatch in Slums: Learning from Slum Communities in Small Cities, explored the housing issues faced by slum dwellers in Ganjam district. His research studied the significance and impact of the currently implemented Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act and Jaga Mission to the slum communities. This project, conducted in collaboration with Youth for Social Development was one of the first large scale research projects focusing on the evaluation of the Jaga Mission, which is the core slum development project of the Government of Odisha. Provision of pattasto slum dwellers in the state through the Jaga Mission has been considered as the world’s largest land titling program.
Dr. Killemsetty spent months interacting with slum communities in Dhimira Bauri Sahi and Raghupati Nagar Slum in Brahmapur, Meta Sahi in Chatrapur, and Sai Baba Sahi in Gopalpur, understanding their challenges and identifying the community needs that could be addressed by effective policy making and implementation through the Jaga Mission. It was observed while communities in Chatrapur and Gopalpur have been content with the provision of land titles and wished for greater support in infrastructure development, slum communities in Berhampur city greatly wished for provision of land titles as their counterparts in small cities.
The research identified multiple avenues of development from increase in financial support for construction of housing to improvement in education and healthcare facilities for slum dwellers. His research provides a toolkit that could be used by government agencies and non-profit organizations to promote participatory decision-making in state policies.
For his research on slums in Ganjam district, Dr. Killemsetty has also been awarded with the PhD in Public Policy Book Award by the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is currently serving as board member of Youth for Social Development, a grassroots NGO based in Berhampur, Odisha. A resident of Harsha Vihar, Berhampur, Dr.Killemsetty is the son of Shri K. Nageswar Subudhi and Smt. K. Vijayalakshmi.
