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Journalism of Courage
“How can 10 people stay in a one-bedroom flat?” asked Raj, 20, sharing his plight as he carried a gas cylinder in one hand and a bag with clothes in another. His jhuggi was one of the 300 slums demolished on Monday at Jailorwala Bagh in Northwest Delhi’s Ashok Vihar by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). “My parents, my brother, and I are moving into a flat nearby where a family we know is already staying, but we will have to look for a place to stay tomorrow,” he said while rushing to make arrangements. A school dropout, he makes cloth labels at a nearby warehouse.
Many in the area, who have been displaced, have decided to move to nearby areas with affordable accommodations like Wazirpur, Jahangirpuri, Azadpur, and Lal Bagh. “But even rents in these places have been increased by landlords, seeing that hundreds of people are looking for a house,” said Suraj Kumar (32), a local. “The monthly rent for a flat I was looking at was Rs 3,500. Now, the landlord has increased it to Rs 4,500,” added Kumar, who works as a delivery partner with a food delivery firm.
The demolition comes five months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over keys of flats in the Swabhiman Apartments, located right behind the slum cluster, to residents of the Jailorwala Bagh for relocation under the Capital’s 2015 slum rehabilitation policy.
According to DDA, 1,078 families were eligible for rehabilitation in the Swabhiman Apartments, while 558 were ineligible to get a flat. “The demolition has been carried out on June 16 of the jhuggi structures where dwellers have been allotted flats and of the ineligible persons, except those who have been granted stay by the Delhi High Court,” an official statement read.
On the Swabhiman Apartments, DDA said, “The project is located on DDA’s land measuring 34,594.74 sqm with a total construction cost of Rs. 421 crore, excluding land cost. The eligible dwellers have been comfortably living in these flats, which have all modern civic facilities. Each flat with a carpet area of 31 sqm consists of 1 living room, 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, and a balcony. The construction cost of each flat is Rs 25 lakh. These flats have been given at a highly subsidised beneficiary contribution of Rs 1.41 lakh.”
To qualify for a flat, slum dwellers were required to prove that they have been living in the jhuggis since 2015 by showing their name in voter lists and possessing any one of the 12 documents (like electricity bill, driving license, among others) prescribed in the policy. Of the 558 ineligible dwellers, the Delhi High Court granted a stay against demolition to about 250 households. The remaining shanties were demolished on Monday.
Mithun, who said he mobilised 250 slum dwellers to move to the High Court and get a stay, claimed that some of those shanties were also demolished on Monday. “A survey was conducted by a third-party agency, which made a lot of errors,” he said. “Even if DDA does not demolish our shanties, how will we stay in the middle of all this rubble? How will our children live in the midst of all this? The stay of the court means nothing now… we will have to move only,” said a woman sitting nearby.
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