Government has decided to launch an ambitious low-cost housing scheme to benefit 32 million slum dwellers in 250 cities across the country.A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, CCEA, chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the launch of the first phase of Rajiv Awas Yojana to facilitate affordable housing for slum dwellers.In a major decision, property rights would be conferred upon the owners of the houses built under the scheme. Home Minister P Chidambaram said after the meeting that the aim of the scheme would be to encourage low-cost housing as well as develop the slums. He said, adding this would go a long way to check proliferation of slums.The Minister said that Centre would bear 50 per cent of the cost of slum redevelopment which could be used by the states and cities towards viability gap funding in order to encourage private sector participation.The government also decided to establish a mortgage risk guarantee fund to facilitate lending to the urban poor for housing purposes with an initial corpus of 1,000 crore rupees. The Central assistance would be conditional to reforms undertaken by the states, including conferring property rights to the owners.In another decision he said the CCEA approved revision in the 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme of post-metric scholarship for Scheduled Tribe students.The Home Minister said the financial assistance will be provided to those students who pursue recognised post-matriculation courses.Mr. Chidambaram said that CCEA also approved the upward revision in the incentive amount to a below poverty line house hold for construction of a latrine. He said it will be 3,200 rupees for general areas and 3,700 rupees for difficult and hilly areas.