HT : Widespread builder-babu nexus robs slum people of their legit rights : Oct 8 , 2007

Widespread builder-babu nexus robs slum people of their legit rights

 Renuka Bisht


T HAT LIVING in a durable house improves one's access to happiness and
health is an axiom backed up by plenty of research. A World Bank working
paper of April 2007 shows, for example, the amazing impact of replacing dirt
floors by cement floors in Mexico: adults reported 69 per cent higher
satisfaction with their quality of life and children's cognitive development
improved by up to 96 per cent! But a pucca room of one's own, that's a
distant dream for most people in India. Even more so for the 158 million who
live in its slums, not to mention the millions more who sleep under the sky
. Resettlement disasters The Law Commission had recommended giving
slumdwellers the right to resettlement preceding destruction of their homes
back in 1990. Such a law was never enacted, so poor people's homes continue
to be ruthlessly razed in a country burdened with a 24.71 million (and
growing) housing shortage, with few of them being resettled.

Take the demolitions carried out in Delhi. In her paper titled, "Better to
have died than to live like this," Kalyani Menon-Sen points that only 6,000
out of the 27,000 families evicted from the Yamuna Pushta area in 2004 were
resettled. Over a lakh people were left to just fend for themselves. Many of
them had been bought to the city by contractors to build the Asian Games
infrastructure. Most had become integral parts of the city's ecosystem as
recyclers, domestic workers, rickshaw pullers and so on. Not only were plots
allocated through so-called voluntary relocation priced beyond these
people's pockets, their proofs of residence were also found largely
inadequate.

To get a complete picture, consider the large number of fake ration cards
and allotment letters seized during the capital's ongoing Ashok Malhotra
scandal. They represent the stolen dreams of Hudson Lane slum evacuees, who
were to be resettled by DDA in Dheerpur. Instead Malhotra sold off these
plots to fictitious persons, a scam more ordi nary than otherwise.

A widespread builderadministration nexus robs slumdwellers of their rights
pretty regularly . A goldmine called Dharavi The UN special rapporteur on
adequate housing has said that most slum evictions take place to create
so-called world-class cities. Mumbai, which aims to shine like Shanghai by
2013 but also hosts one of the world's largest slums, has come up with an
innovative public-private partnership model to simultaneously rehabilitate
its poor and to meet its growing commercial estate requirements. And
everyone from international giants like Emaar of Dubai to domestic biggies
like DLF is hooked.

The winning bidders of the $2.3 billion project will cross-subsidize free
houses for all the 340,000 people who occupy the 535 acres stretch. And to
meet the income needs of the affected people, there are initiatives like an
agreement with the National Institute of Design for upgrading the skills of
Dharavi's craftsmen or another with the Gems and Jewelry Export Promotion
Council which is going to set up factories generating 75,000 jobs.

Time after time, policy after policy, promise-makers have let down the
slumdwellers. But there is hope that Dharavi will rewrite history, and set a
new benchmark for people friendly progress.
renuka.bisht@hindustantimes.com



Publication : HT; Section : Resarch; Pg : 9; Date : 8/10/07
URL :
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=08_10_2007_009_003&typ=0&pub=264