Delhi: Sumrti Kagra, a soft-spoken 70-year-old woman, who has lived all her life in a slum in a southeastern neighbourhood of India’s capital, has been waiting five years for a permanent house, towards which she paid the Delhi government Rs 142,000 in August 2019.

"I have been here since my youth, got married here, gave birth to my children, and it feels like I will die here, waiting for a house from the government," said Kagra, previously a construction worker and vegetable vendor.

Under the Delhi Slum & Jhuggi Jhopri Rehabilitation and Relocation Policy, 2015, residents of the slums, or bastis, must contribute Rs 112,000 towards a 25 sq m dwelling unit and an additional Rs 30,000 for maintenance, while the agencies that own the land the slum is built on are to pay the rest of the rehabilitation costs.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) is the nodal agency for rehabilitating and relocating Delhi’s slum dwellers and functions under the control of the government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), run currently by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Kagra lives with two of her four sons, her daughter-in-law, and her grandchildren in the Kaushak Nallah basti in Delhi’s East Kidwai Nagar. 

This slum is primarily populated by construction workers who helped build the towering residential complexes in East Kidwai Nagar. Many women from the settlement work as domestic workers in these towers.

When Kagra learned about the payment required by the government in 2019, the two sons she lives with pooled their savings and borrowed a further Rs 20,000 from a relative in Ghaziabad. 

Together, they managed to pay the Rs 142,000 to secure a home. 

“One of my sons drives an ambulance, and the other works as a sweeper for the municipality (Municipal Corporation of Delhi),” Kagra said. “It took almost all of our savings from their jobs, but even that wasn't enough.”

‘Waiting Endlessly’

Kagra’s long wait to be housed echoes Raj Vati’s struggle to secure a permanent home. Vati currently lives in the Ambedkar Basti of R.K. Puram, Delhi. 

Raj Vati, now 42, applied for rehabilitation in 2013, under the Delhi government's Rehabilitation and Improvement Scheme, 2000, the predecessor to DUSIB’s 2015 policy. 

According to the policy at the time, launched by the Congress state government,  slum dwellers had to pay Rs 73,000 to be rehabilitated. Scheduled caste (SC) beneficiaries, such as Raj Vati and her husband, a sweeper at a private company, were required to pay DUSIB a token sum of Rs 2,000, which she did when applying.

Her husband, Rakesh Kumar, 44, said, “Paying Rs. 2,000 wasn’t an issue, but getting the SC certificate overnight was a real struggle. I had to run around everywhere, and eventually I ended up paying Rs. 19,000 to get the certificate.”

“We’re still waiting to be housed, but now we’ve almost forgotten the promise,” Raj Vati said. “There’s no news about when we’ll actually receive it. So many people, including my mother-in-law, passed away waiting for a house in this basti. We’re enduring the stench of the open gutter, waiting endlessly.”

Both Kagra and Vati are part of the approximately 2,402 resident families of the 22 slums across Delhi that have been approved for permanent housing under the Delhi government’s 2000 policy and DUSIB’s 2015 policy over the last 14 years.

"These 2,402 eligible families deposited money as early as 2010 in areas like Nivedita Kunj and as recently as 2017 in Kidwai Nagar,” said Shakeel Abdul, who has led the Basti Suraksha Manch, a civil society group working for housing rights in Delhi for nearly two decades. “Yet, none of these settlements have received housing to date."

The Delhi government constructed 35,744 houses according to the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), from 2007 to 2017. However, only 4,833 of these houses have been allocated to beneficiaries, leaving 30,303 houses vacant. 

No Response From Govt

Article 14 sought comment from Abdul Dayyan, director of rehabilitation at DUSIB, by telephone, on 5 July and 6 July 2024 on the delays in allotting homes, but we did not receive a response. We sent an email reminder on 5 August 2024. There was no response. We will update the story if there is.

Although houses have already been constructed and beneficiaries have been waiting, the prolonged delay in housing allocation by DUSIB is now compounded by a bureaucratic dispute between the state and union governments.

On 8 July 2020, the government of India launched Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban Scheme to provide rental accommodation for the urban poor. The MOHUA, which oversees this scheme, designated the houses constructed under the JNNURM for allocation as ARHCs. 

This included the houses that the DUSIB wanted to allot for resettlement under their 2015 policy and earlier 2000 policy to the 2,402 families.

A September 2023 suo-moto Delhi High Court order said, “The progression towards the targeted goal is almost stagnant” because of the  “stalemate” between the MoHUA and DUSIB. 

Further, the houses constructed in the four relocation sites are uninhabitable, according to residents and an activist we spoke with.

The high court said that both MoHUA and DUSIB were “seemingly keen to advance their respective welfare schemes”, even if this were “at the cost of the primary objective”, rehousing the marginalised urban poor.

"DUSIB has been appointed as a nodal agency for this work [relocation of residents of slums] and has received crores of rupees from poor people as well as the land-owning agency, but now they do not have houses to allot,” said Jayshree Satpute, a human rights lawyer who practices in the Supreme Court.

“The vacant houses, which should have been allotted a decade ago, were converted to the ARHC scheme in December 2020,” said Satpute.

Satpute, who has fought cases for slum dwellers in India's Supreme Court and high courts since 2007, added, “The state government has also failed to create housing stock other than under the majorly central government funded scheme JNNURM. DUSIB must explain where that money (paid by slum residents and nodal agencies) has gone.” 

The DUSIB has received Rs 76.17 crore from the land-owning agencies, including the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, the Central Public Works Department, and the Land and Development Office, in addition to the money collected from the residents of the slums. 

Houses Built & Paid For, Not Allotted; Despite High Court Order 

The National Buildings Construction Corporation, a union government public sector undertaking under the MoHUA, owned the land on which the Kaushak Nallah basti was built and wanted to reclaim that land. 

The residents of the slum moved the Delhi High Court. The first hearing of the case was in April 2017, which determined that 289 out of the 449 families living there were eligible for resettlement.

A 2019 Delhi High Court order found Kagra eligible for rehabilitation under DUSIB’s 2015 policy. 

The residents of the Kaushak Nallah basti paid the money by 2019, and in November 2019 a court ordered that they be allotted homes within five months, by May 2020. 

That never happened.

A right-to-information (RTI) application, filed by Kaushak Nallah basti resident Mathura Prasad, with the assistance of Basti Suraksha Manch, sought information on the timeline for house allotment. 

The response on 27 May 2024 revealed that the people of the Kaushak Nallah basti had paid Rs 1.37 crore for new houses. 

However, the response to the RTI request did not provide any indication of how much longer the allotment would take, as DUSIB’s policy does not specify a timeframe.

The residents of the Kaushak Nallah basti are not the only ones who have paid allotment fees and have not received a house. 

In a 22 March 2021 letter, the DUSIB informed the MoHUA that approximately 2,402 residents across 22 slums in Delhi had paid money from 2010 onwards to the slum wing of the Delhi municipal corporation.

No one had received a home.

The letter said that families from the 22 slums would be resettled at four sites: sector 16-B Dwarka, Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) complex, Bawana, Sultanpuri and Bhalsawa, all on the outskirts of Delhi. 

Although construction at these sites was complete, the houses remained vacant due to a disagreement between the DUSIB and the MoHUA over which scheme o be used to allot them.

Competing Schemes

The Delhi High Court’s 2023 suo-moto order was prompted by its finding, in a 2021 first appeal order regarding unauthorised occupants near Kalkaji Mandir, south Delhi, that around 52,000 flats, originally designated for the urban poor under the JNNURM, remain either unconstructed or unallocated. 

While hearing the suo-motu public interest litigation, the court found that the DUSIB had planned to allocate 9,104 flats out of 35,744 houses already constructed and that the MoHUA had, in a circular issued on 31 December 2020, directed state governments to allocate the same houses to eligible beneficiaries under the ARHC scheme. 

Consequently, the houses cannot be given to slum dwellers under the DUSIB’s policy. 

“MOHUA has created constant issues in letting us allocate the houses. People are suffering because of this, and the houses that have been built are also crumbling in the meantime,” said Bipin Rai, a former DUSIB official who closely dealt with rehabilitation and resettlement. “They [MOHUA] just want to do vote politics.”

The ARHC scheme is a 2020 Union government scheme under the MoHUA, while the Delhi Slum & Jhuggi Jhopri Rehabilitation and Relocation Policy 2015, is a Delhi state government policy under the DUSIB. 

Both schemes aim to rehouse the urban poor, but slum dwellers will be given permanent ownership of houses under the Delhi government’s scheme, while the ARHC scheme requires them to pay rent for the houses.

The lieutenant governor, chief minister and chief secretary of Delhi, along with the DUSIB, have repeatedly written to the MoHUA, requesting that it reconsider its stance on the allocation of the houses. 

However, the MoHUA has refused.

Caught In The Middle

Article 14 sought comment from Durga Shankar Mishra, secretary, housing and urban poverty alleviation, MoHUA, on 11 August 2024, on the delay in housing allocation but we did not receive a response. We sent an email reminder on 14 August 2024.  There was no response. We will update the story if there is.

The Delhi High Court said, “The non-execution of a MoA (memorandum of agreement) between the Central Government and GNCTD in respect of ARHCs, and failure to formulate a concise policy for allotment have resulted in non-utilization of 9,104 flats, which have already been constructed.”

“Allocating these houses under ARHC is unacceptable,” said Karuvaki Mohanty, the lawyer representing the Kaushak Nallah basti residents and a senior programme officer for housing rights at Iprobono India, an organisation that helps provide free legal counsel. “Why must people endure this struggle between the state and central governments?”

The 2023 Delhi High Court order recommended the formation of a high-powered committee comprising the secretary of MoHUA, the government of India, the vice-chairperson of the Delhi Development Authority, the chairperson of the DUSIB, the principal secretary of the government of Delhi, the chairperson of the Delhi Jal Board and the chairperson of the DSIIDC to streamline the process of allotting houses. 

"We are aware that two meetings have taken place. We lack information on its current status and are currently advocating in the High court for a status report from the high-powered committee,” said Mohanty. “So far, DUSIB has not shared any updates."

The Delhi High Court, in the latest hearing of the case, on 10 July 2024, ruled that the rights of the residents of the slums could not be violated and that they were entitled to rehabilitation. 

“We have numerous orders reiterating that the flats must be allotted as soon as possible,” said Mohanty, “but none of these orders have been implemented."

She also pointed out that if the residents of these slums had been allowed to save or invest the money they had paid DUSIB, they would have earned significant interest.

‘Why Are They Suggesting We Take Houses On Rent?’

Under the MoHUA’s ARHC scheme, introduced in July 2020, beneficiaries will be allocated houses for 25 years, with initial rent determined by a local survey. 

Subsequently, the rent will increase by 8% every two years, capped at a maximum increase of 20% over 5 years from the contract signing date.

Although residents of several slums were aware of the possibility of receiving houses under the ARHC scheme, many, such as Reenu Kaur, who lives in the Kaushik Nallah basti, were hesitant. 

"If we paid the full amount to own a house, why are they suggesting we take houses on rent, even if the rent is minimal?” she asked. “If they are unable to provide houses, perhaps they should offer land or allow us to build our own homes here."

In the landmark judgement of Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation case (1985), a case concerning people living on the streets and in the slums of Mumbai, the Supreme Court ruled that any eviction or resettlement process must be conducted in a manner that ensures the affected people are fully informed about where they will be relocated and must be provided adequate notice and alternative housing.

Yet, the residents of the Delhi slums are unsure where they will be relocated to. 

While DUSIB's 22 March 2021 letter to MOHUA proposed the four relocation sites in Dwarka, Bawana, Sultanpuri and Bhalsawa, the provisional eligibility letters DUSIB issued to residents of the slums do not contain any specific information.

"We were promised houses in Dwarka Sector-16, with the assurance of immediate flat allocation upon payment. However, despite paying, we are unsure when or even if we will get a house in Dwarka,” said Reenu, who received her provisional eligibility letter in 2019. “Recently, there were rumours that we might be relocated to Bawana (in northwest Delhi) . I am against that idea."

Sheikh Akbar Ali, a housing-rights activist who has been working in Delhi’s slums for nearly two decades, highlighted this widespread confusion among residents. 

“People are bewildered,” he said. “Residents of the Nivedita Kunj basti (in southwest Delhi), have been shown relocation sites three times: first in Dwarka (near the west Delhi border), then in Baprola (a village on the outskirts of Najafgarh, in southwest Delhi), and finally in Bhalswa (in northwest Delhi).”

‘Flats Built Not Habitable’

Activists, such as Akbar Ali, said the four proposed relocation sites, where construction began in 2007-2017 under the JNNURM, particularly Bhalswa and Bawana, are in a very poor condition. 

"At Bhalswa Resettlement, it was found that the flats built are not habitable,” said Akbar Ali. “There are no gates in the toilets, no windows, doors, or even commodes. There is also a lack of water, sewerage, roads, and parks”.

Akbar Ali said that the government could not expect poor slum-dwellers to pay for the repairs required to make the houses inhabitable.

In February 2022, four people died in Bawana due to the structural failure of empty government housing, caused by rampant theft of fittings and iron. 

The Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC), responsible for maintaining these unallotted flats, announced an immediate safety audit of 10 sites in northwest and west Delhi, encompassing around 31,556 unoccupied units under the JNNURM. 

Akbar Ali remarked, “It is also unclear who will repair these houses before allotment once the bureaucratic tussle gets over.”

Article 14 sought comment, on 6 August 2024, from the executive engineer at DSIIDC on the status of their audit and plans to repair the unoccupied JNNURM flats. There was no response. We will update the story if there is.

The beneficiaries of the policy have also expressed reluctance to be relocated to distant sites like Bawana or even Dwarka. 

“Better To Stay Near The Nallah’

"It's better to stay near the nallah than to move to Bawana. I didn't come to the city to end up in a village like Bawana one day,” said Sumrti, who lives in the Kaushak Nallah basti. “There are no jobs or essential services there. What will my family eat, and where will they find work?"

While awaiting resettlement housing, people are struggling to survive. 

The 2024 monsoon rains submerged the entire Kaushak Nallah basti as the nallah overflowed. Residents were forced onto the streets without adequate shelter, an ordeal they face every year.

Residents of the Kaushak Nallah basti fear that their fate will be similar to that of the residents of another slum, the Maa Anandmai Marg and MD Road basti, located in south-east Delhi.

The Delhi metro rail corporation, on 15 July 2024,  sent the residents of this slum a notice to vacate their homes  to make way for a mass rapid transit system. 

Labelling these jhuggis as "encroachments", the notice demanded that they relocate within 15 days. 

In the Kaushak Nallah basti, the uncertainty of their future discourages residents from improving their current makeshift houses. 

"Most homes in the basti don't even have permanent roofs,” said Kagra. “We can't invest in improving our conditions here, fearing our houses could be bulldozed later."

(Anuj Behal is an independent journalist and urban researcher primarily focusing on issues of urban justice, gender, and migration in India.)

Get exclusive access to new databases, expert analyses, weekly newsletters, book excerpts and new ideas on democracy, law and society in India. Subscribe to Article 14.