Planned colonies for the poor are the answer, not bulldozers

The issue of urban encroachments should be seen on a wider socio-political canvas and not just through the narrow confines of communal politics. While the word 'bulldozer' eases into our frame of political discourse, the attention should be on the uncontrolled anarchy of habitation that afflicts our metropolises, cities, and towns. The poorer and poorest sections of society live in temporary structures with cardboard roofs and tins-sheet walls amid unhygienic conditions and take the brunt of municipal efforts to clear unauthorised encroachments. Who get away scot-free are the super-rich who too inhabit unauthorised colonies with their sprawling bungalows and where the bulldozers do not tread at all. Municipal data of a decade ago says just under a fourth of Delhi's population lives in planned colonies. The rest live in illegal constructions and slums. Government estimates for 2019 show 1,700 illegal colonies across the national capital. The situation in, say, Mumbai, is probably worse. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata have their own stories. What India is witnessing today is a surge of aspirations in the countryside driving thousands of educated youth and daily-wage labourers, and landless peasants toward the cities. The whole of Maharashtra is turning into a semi-urban landmass.

In other states, the divide between the urban and rural areas is getting blurred. Unfortunately, the civic consciousness of the authorities is also blurry. The inability to take a holistic view of encroachments and ham-handed, reactive measures are the root cause of the problems. There is no effort to provide shelter to urban migrants. The poor take care of the poor and the new-comers also end up living in slums. Many of them occupy pavements to sell vegetables or trinkets, clothes or utensils and drive autos or rickshaws. They come to the attention of the political parties only at election time when it is also the time to grant permits to illegal dwellings, regularise unauthorised colonies, or permit vegetable carts along busy roads. The bulldozers should target the unauthorised colonies inhabited by the rich. The focus must be on providing for low-income housing - the PM UDAY Yojana has a lot of backlogs to cover - in a time-bound manner and give the illegal residents welfare benefits and job opportunities. Unauthorised colonies cannot be left to municipalities to resolve. They should become part of the urban development process for legal living.