Residents of Madrasi Camp, a slum cluster in South Delhi’s Jangpura, have been protesting for the past couple of weeks against the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) relocating them to Narela, despite being promised in-situ housing by the BJP in the run-up to Assembly polls.
There are 675 jhuggi jhopri (JJ) clusters in the Capital, as per the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) website. Most have come up on land owned by Union or Delhi government agencies, such as Railways, Municipal Corporation of Delhi and DDA, among others. While DUSIB is responsible for rehabilitating all slums on Delhi government land, DDA is the nodal agency for handling slums that have come up on Union government’s land.
The policy
Slum rehabilitation in Delhi is governed by the Delhi Slum & Jhuggi Jhopri Rehabilitation and Relocation Policy, 2015, passed by the Cabinet in 2016. It was introduced to deal with the situation of slums mushrooming in Delhi due to the absence of adequate housing for people such as drivers and domestic helps, who perform critical activities in middle or upper class areas. The government recognised that slums are dirty and unfit for human habitation and that it was its duty to provide permanent housing to slum dwellers near their place of work.
Thus, the thrust was on in-situ rehabilitation, which means giving slum dwellers proper housing at the area where they are already residing. It was decided that only in extraordinary conditions, when in-situ rehabilitation is not possible, that slum dwellers would be relocated.
Who gets houses
However, not all slum dwellers can get houses under the policy. As per norms, to be eligible for rehabilitation or relocation, the slum has to be in existence before January 1, 2006, and the particular dwelling unit has to be in existence before January 1, 2015. The slum dweller also needs a voter identity card that he received between 2012 and 2015 (before January 1), his name mentioned in the DUSIB survey and in possession of one of the 12 identification documents – including ration card and electricity bill, among others – to be allotted a new house. Additionally, the slum dweller should not have a house in Delhi.
Any slum that came up in Delhi after January 1, 2015 is not eligible under the policy.
Houses are not free
A slum dweller has to pay Rs 1.12 lakh to get a house having an area of 25 sq m, as well as Rs 30,000 as maintenance cost for five years.
House not always allocated at same area
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According to the policy, alternate accommodation has to be provided to a slum dweller on the same land or within a radius of 5 km. But under exceptional circumstances, in-situ rehabilitation need not be undertaken. Such circumstances include – there is a court order; the slum encroaches a street, road, footpath, railway safety zone or a park; and encroached land is required by the land-owning agency for a public project that is urgent.
Case of Madrasi Camp
The Madrasi camp, which mostly houses people from Tamil Nadu, is blocking the flow of Brapullah drain. The Delhi High Court, in March, had noted that it is essential that the drain is cleared up prior to the arrival of monsoon so that waterlogging can be avoided as much as possible. Since the DDA had informed the HC that EWS flats are not available in nearby areas other than in Narela, the court had ordered the agency to go ahead with a draw for 189 of the 370 residents of Madrasi Camp found eligible to get housing.