This is how the other half lives

ON THE EDGE: delhi govt sets an impossible deadline to make city slum-free

It’s not easy to miss it while travelling into Delhi from Noida on the Metro. Just after the train crosses the filthy Yamuna, a huge jhuggi jhopri cluster appears in sight, behind the World Health Organisation building. In government records, the place is called JJ Cluster WHO Building Anna Nagar and comprises of 1,122 shanties where about 5,000 people live in the most abysmal civic conditions, devoid of adequate water, electricity, drainage or sanitation.

Anna Nagar is not an isolated case in the city which chief minister Sheila Dikshit calls world class. Just to name a few, JJ cluster Railway Daya Basti has 4,610 jhuggis, Shahid Sukh Dev Nagar (Wazirpur) has 2,275, Sanjay Camp Chankayapuri 1,075,   Bandhu Camp in Vasant Kunj  556, Sultanpuri DE block 925, Meera Bagh 1,341.

As far as the living conditions are concerned, imagine this: Five to seven people live in each jhuggi. Assuming an average of just five per tenement,  the population of the Meera Bagh slum cluster comes to about 6,700 people. Locals claim it is over 10, 000.

There are just four Sulabh Shauchalya    toilets for this entire mass of people. Open drains flow between the huts, tankers supply minimal water on payment, and electricity is stolen from overhead wires.

But all is well, according to Anna Nagar resident Nadeem: “Sab theek hai. Paise kama ke ghar bhejne hai. Baki to sab chalta hai.” He says he is focusing just on earning and sending money home.

Delhi began witnessing emergence of slums immediately after Independence.
Since the 1990s, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation are bringing an increasing number of migrants to Delhi each day. The growth of slums has resulted not only in environmental degradation, but is also creating social tensions and related law and order problems.

The chief minister has set 2017 as the deadline for making Delhi slum-free. But can she deliver?

“About 14,000 flats for resettling slum dwellers are ready and another 50,000 have been approved. About one lakh would be needed, and we are sure that we will be able to achieve our target of providing houses to the eligible slum dwellers,” says Delhi's urban development minister Dr A K Walia when asked about the 2017 target.

According to Walia, there are 685 slum clusters in the national capital – 321 of them stand on Delhi Development Authority (DDA) land and only the remaining 364 are the responsibility of Delhi government.

The government may be preparing to provide one lakh houses but the fact remains that more than double will be required.

According to the report of the committee on slum statistics from Census-2011, the slum population of Delhi in 2001 was 23,18,635. This is 17.97 per cent of its then total urban population of 1,29,05,780.

And it constituted  three per cent of the country's entire slum population. The report had also estimated the state-wise projected slum population in coming years. In Delhi, the report said, in five years between 2011 to 17, the slum population will grow from 31,63,430 to 37,93,313.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi in its 2010 report submitted to the Supreme Court had claimed that about 49 per cent of the total population of Delhi lives in slums and unauthorised colonies. While this may be bit exaggerated, it cannot be denied that lakhs of people in Delhi are living in JJ clusters of varying sizes.

‘No exact figures’

“There are no exact figures about slum population since it is always in the state of flux. But even if we go by Delhi government's take, by the time their one lakh houses are ready, there will be another one lakh new migrants living in the same JJ clusters.

Even by the most conservative estimates, more than two lakh houses are required to settle them all even today,” says an official who worked in the slum wing of the MCD before it was taken over by city government's Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) two years ago.

How will the government tackle the constant addition to the slum population?
Walia clarifies that only those people who are eligible will be resettled in low-cost houses. The aspirants have to be living in JJ clusters before March 31, 2007. People who came to stay in them after March 2007 will not be considered. And, they should be able to pay the landowning agency share of Rs. 93,000 plus a beneficiary share of Rs. 60,000,  as per the funding pattern approved by the cabinet.

The name of eligible JJ dwellers should also figure in the joint biometric survey conducted by DUSIB with the concerned landowning agency. The minister adds that the allotment of these houses will begin next month.

However, there are sceptics.  The  opposition Bharatiya Janata Party believes the plan is a sham, and the   government's own officials think that more needs to be done to stop slums from mushrooming.

“It is not so simple. Even if you remove the present residents from the slums, where will you put the new arrivals who come looking for jobs and are needed to build the infrastructure here. Surely, you cannot shoot them if they put up a tent at some open space. A multi-pronged strategy is required and several factors will have to be taken in account,” says a senior Delhi bureaucrat.

Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly, Vijay Kumar Malhotra says that government which cannot regularise unauthorised colonies in 14 years can do nothing.
“About making Delhi slum-free, they have set a target of 2017 which is still some time away. However, going by this government's record in the case of unauthorised colonies, we have no hopes on anything from it,” he says.