REVIEW OF URBAN AFFAIRS Economic & Political Weekly EPW MAY 31, 2014 vol xlix no 22 63 Intentions, Design and Outcomes Reflections on IHSDP in Maharashtra Himanshu Burte The research and fieldwork on which this paper is based was conducted between late 2011 and early 2013 as part of a larger project of the Urban India Research Facility at the School of Habitat Studies, TISS, Mumbai, funded by Ford Foundation. The research related to housing, including on IHSDP, was a collaborative effort within SoHS as well as with local individuals, institutions and teams in three cities: Akola, Sangli and Aurangabad. In SoHS, the housing team included Amita Bhide, Himanshu Burte, Smita Waingankar and Simpreet Singh. Many discussions within this team have helped shape the arguments in this paper. In particular, Amita Bhide’s insights and comments throughout the research and writing have been very important. In Akola, the local team included Anjali Maydeo and Sandeep Pundkar, and Shankar Pujari in Sangli. This paper is part of the author’s ongoing research for a PhD in urban planning at CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Himanshu Burte (hburte@tiss.edu) teaches at the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. This paper examines the implementation of the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme in the smaller cities of Maharashtra. It discusses the reasons behind the poor quantitative and qualitative performance of the IHSDP in the state and examines why the programme has not been a success, either in terms of the completion rate or beneficiary satisfaction. T his paper reflects on the implementation of the Inte- grated Housing and Slum Development Programme ( IHSDP ) in the smaller cities of Maharashtra. Maha- rashtra accounts for over a fifth of the dwelling units ( DUs ) sanctioned nationally under the IHSDP , a programme launched nationally under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ( JNNURM). This paper combines an overview of the numerical performance of the programme in the state with an investigation of its implementation in the cities of Akola and Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, and includes the perspectives and experiences of different stakeholders, especially beneficiaries. While the numerical performance of the programme in Maharashtra as a whole has been poor, it has been worse in both the cities studied, with not a single home being completed, as per official reports. Unofficially, however, a number of homes have been occupied in Akola. Some perverse potential outcomes, as well as unanticipated contours of the implemen- tation process illuminated by the research, suggest the need to re-examine the intentions (and assumptions) underlying afford- able housing programme design on the one hand, and the reality of their alignments with the policy and procedural design, as well as the supposedly desired outcomes, on the other. This paper fills a gap in the academic literature about IHSDP’ s implementation and adds to the discussion of state housing initiatives, especially under JNNURM. The main objective of the research was to get a more grounded understanding of the different dimensions of the experience of implementing IHSDP that selected cities have undergone. While the focus, naturally, was on the experience of the “beneficiaries” (did they really “benefit”, and whether they did or not, how and why?), the approach and experience of the urban local bodies ( ULBs ) as well as of other actors were also examined. The research methodology combined a review of policy and other official documents related to IHSDP , with case studies of selected cities and sites where the programme has been launched. 1 The study finds that a hoary contradiction marks IHSDP: centralisation of power to decide and the decentralisation of the responsibility to cope with such decisions. The latter responsibility inevitably falls disproportionately on the least able as we go down the line – first on unempowered ULBs who then pass on a significant share to the putative beneficiary. Centralised decision-making is marked by the professional convenience of the decision-maker (Turner 1977). The knottiest issues in the project – land and price escalation – are left to the