Delhi elections: How slum rehabilitation has become a major poll issue

The significance of the slum vote

About 80 per cent of Delhi’s slum residents voted for the AAP in the last two elections in 2015 and 2020. The party’s welfare schemes such as free electricity, free water up to 20,000 litres per household, mohalla clinics and free transportation for women have been well-received. The AAP plans to build on this voter base, with party chief Arvind Kejriwal calling himself the “protector of slums and slum residents” last week. To this end, they have embarked on door-to-door campaigns and public meetings. The party has alleged that the BJP if elected would cancel the current schemes and demolish their houses within a year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week inaugurated Swabhiman Apartments – the in-situ slum rehabilitation project in Ashok Vihar in West Delhi, culminating a six-month-long outreach effort which has seen BJP leaders spend time and stay overnight in slum clusters.

How are Delhi’s slums rehabilitated?

There are around 46 land-owning agencies on whose land slums and JJ clusters are encroaching.

The task of slum rehabilitation in Delhi falls on two agencies: the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), a central government body, and the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) at the state level.

Central government agencies like Railways, Land & Development Office, Delhi Cantonment Board and New Delhi Municipal Council may carry out the relocation and rehabilitation process on their own or entrust the job to DUSIB. DDA is authorised to construct houses and oversee the relocation and rehabilitation of slum clusters on central government land.

DUSIB, on the other hand, is the nodal agency for the relocation and rehabilitation of JJ clusters from the lands belonging to the Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) and the Delhi government and its departments/agencies. It surveys slums and verifies the eligibility of slum inhabitants to help with their rehabilitation. It enables the construction of houses through other state agencies like Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC).

Why is the slum rehabilitation process difficult?

An official who spoke to The Indian Express said that the process of rehabilitating slum inhabitants has changed since the first resettlement colonies and slums were built in 1960. As the population expanded, the size of the land holding allotted to slum dwellers shrank.

“Initially a plot of 80 square yards would be allotted to a family, and later the size would reduce to 40, 18 and then 12.5 square yards… Under this policy, the government used to reduce the plot size, allotting them to slum dwellers where they built their houses. The state government would then provide basic facilities and services such as water connection, drainage connection and roads. With shrinking land availability, it revised this policy from allotting land-holdings to allotting flats in 2010,” said an official who spoke to The Indian Express.

In 2015, the state government introduced “Jahan Jhuggi Wahan Makan”, an in situ rehabilitation policy which promised to construct houses for slum dwellers within a five-kilometre radius of their current dwelling. Later that year, the Delhi government introduced a scheme for the in situ rehabilitation of JJ bastis on lands belonging to other land-owning agencies. The DDA-built Kathputli slum colony was rehabilitated under this policy.

The Delhi Master Plan 2021 envisages that for in situ rehabilitation of JJ bastis, a maximum of 40% of land can be used as a resource and a minimum of 60% of land has to be used for in-situ redevelopment to rehabilitate JJ dwellers.

Under the in-situ rehabilitation of jhuggi bastis, DUSIB undertakes surveys and verification processes of slum and submits a report to the land-owning agency, which compensates DUSIB for relocating the jhuggi households. The cost of rehabilitation includes the costs of construction of dwelling units and land if additional land belonging to DUSIB is used for rehabilitation.