An Evaluation of UMEED in Ahmedabad: Analysis through Narratives

Urban poverty is a pertinent problem facing the Government of India since independence and the Government has taken up a number of approaches for Urban Poverty Alleviation (UPA) in India. The Government has adopted four-pronged strategy of employment creation housing, social development and environmental improvement of slums to alleviate poverty in India. This research is an attempt to analyse one such programme-UMEED launched by the Government of Gujarat as part of the employment creation strategy. Eight case studies were chosen from Ahmedabad through random sampling and responses were elicited to gauge the success or failure of UMEED. The case studies revealed that the programme has been really effective as an inventive idea to provide training for skill development to the youth of urban poor. It has provided a platform where employable youth can be trained to meet the human resource needs of the business and industry.