-Tax to be paid by those who are allotted land by a govt agency and choose to keep it vacant
-It will be calculated at the prevailing market rate
-Move is intended to deter greedy builders and developers from exploiting scarce city land
-Civic agencies must spend 25% of their budget in areas dominated by the urban poor if they want to avail of the cash `BUDGET FOR THE POOR'
-Civic bodies must spend more on poor to avail grant.

A government proposal has suggested that civic agencies spend 25% of their budget in areas dominated by the urban poor if they want to avail of Central assistance from Basic Services to Urban Poor Fund.

The limit has been fixed considering that at least a quarter of the population in cities and towns lives in slums.

Poor constitute a major chunk of the urban population. According to the government's estimates, in Mumbai, slum-dwellers constitute 54.1% of the city's population. The figure for Delhi is 18.7%. The proportion increases in smaller towns.

In Faridabad near New Delhi, 46.5% of the total population lives in slums while in Meerut the figure is 44.1%. In Kolkata, 32.5% of the total population lives in slums, while they account for 18.9% of Chennai's population. The figure for Hyderabad is 17.2%.

Selja had some time ago written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for setting up the dedicated fund. Subsequently, finance minister P Chidambaram asked the ministry to come out with the concept note on the proposal. The move is part of the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry's proposal to provide 100% access to basic services for urban poor within the Mission Period 2005-12.

The ministry has also introduced an innovative concept of P-Budget (Budget for the Poor). Under this, municipalities will have to allocate funds for schemes especially focused on weaker sections of society according to the proportion of their population in a city, said a senior official.