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Technical Report: Right housing Rights: Rangpuri Pahari Chronicle
Text by Gita Dewan Verma
We, in professions or politics or government or NGOs, call them ‘slums’, their residents ‘poor’ and ‘vulnerable’ if we are good guys or ‘encroachers’ and ‘migrants’ and more if we are bad guys. In democracy that must surely be in infancy if not actually stillborn, ‘we’ do not even think of ‘them’ as citizens. Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi is a ‘slum’ because we say so. Its residents are citizens because their actions say so, in ways that many if not most of us have yet to learn to speak.
Source: http://plan.architexturez.org/, Publisher: Architexturez Network; © AZ: Plan. Reproduced by the permision of Gita Dewan Verma
+ New Delhi Master Plan…
+ Categorisation: Enaction and the Profession (primary)… with related pages…Rangpuri Pahari is described as the area west of the flatted housing area of Vasant Kunj in South Delhi, though it might be more accurate to describe Vasant Kunj as the area east of Rangpuri Pahari because it came up later. Quarrying of stone (‘pahar’) in the area started somewhere in the ‘50s. Contractors ‘settled’ quarry workers in various places. Some opted to live close to the main Mehrauli-Mahipalpur road and thus came about the settlement of Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi. Others opted to live closer to the quarries further south and thus came about the settlement of Rangpuri Pahari Nala. Some Muslim families opted to live separately in a settlement to the north across Mehrauli-Mahipalpur road and thus came about the settlement of Rangpuri Pahari Sarak Par. Later a driver engaged in transporting quarry stone started a settlement between Malakpur Kohi and Nala that is known after him as Rangpuri Pahari Israil Camp. A fair amount of Delhi’s ‘planned development’ including its airport much used by the development walas is made out of stone quarried from Rangpuri Pahari. These four old settlements were of workers who quarried this stone when needed, broke it into various sizes as needed and transported it to where it was needed till the quarries were closed. Even now, especially in Malakpur Kohi and Nala, most families are of quarry workers.
When Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi came into being in the ‘50s, there was only Mahipalpur village to the west and Rangpuri village further west and Sultangarhi Tomb to the east. The settlement drew its name. Malakpur Kohi, from the original kasba that grew around Sultangarhi Tomb in the 13th century and was the original settlement from where residents moved to establish Mahipalpur, Rangpuri, etc, when the abandoned the kasba in the 17th century. The Master Plan for Delhi promulgated in 1962 designated this entire area beyond urbanisable limits for reasons of constrained water sources. The area south of Mehrauli-Mahipalpur road, including the settlement of Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi, was earmarked inviolable green belt. The settlement thus became a ‘non-conforming’ use meriting priority in relocation under the statutory provisions of the Plan. At the time, the minimum permissible plot sizes were 80 square metres. But development of green belt was not a priority, so the Delhi Development Authority did not relocate the settlement to a planned location. At the end of the ‘70s a government school was set up just west. In the mid-80s, DDA came out with its Vasant Kunj scheme beyond urbanisable limits, partly in inviolable green to the east of Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi. Although the Plan required pre-existing settlements to be integrated in new development, this was not done. The only ‘benefit’ that seems to have accrued to the old residents of the area from new planned development is employment opportunities in construction and domestic worker sectors. At the time Vasant Kunj was being designed the minimum plot sizes being considered were in the range of 30 to 50 square metres. Smaller plot sizes had been tried in some schemes, but the mid-term appraisal of the Plan had rejected these experiments. In 1990 the revised Master Plan was approved. Norms for residential development required all residential areas to have 25 per cent housing by way of cheap plots (normally not less than 25 square metres) and another 20 per cent by way of small houses to ensure integrated neighbourhoods. Although the scheme for Vasant Kunj was otherwise designed as per the norms of the Master Plan as approved in 1990, the housing component was skewed in favour of up-market housing. Sites earmarked for low-income housing were, nevertheless, more than adequate for the existing low-income population in Rangpuri Pahari, but no effort was made by DDA to integrate these pre-existing settlements into its scheme.
Also in 1990 token numbers and identity cards were issued to all slum families in Delhi. This well-intentioned initiative was a response ‘on the rebound’, so to speak, to high-handed slum relocation that the city had been witnessing and was meant to provide some security to slum dwellers. It did, however, have the unfortunate effect of reducing all ‘slums’ to the same common denominator irrespective of whether they were old settlements politely waiting their turn in ‘planned development’ or recent shanties set up by slum landlords in areas not meant for habitation. Through the ‘90s the ‘slum problem’ in Delhi became definitely delinked from low-income housing supply by DDA, Master Plan provisions meant for the contrary notwithstanding. In Vasant Kunj sites meant for low-income flats were developed and disposed off in ways certain to attract upper-income groups and, in a complete abandonment of its mandate of planned development for equitable benefits for all, DDA has lately advertised is latest low-income housing as high-income flats. ‘Slum dwellers’ are no longer settled in this city, they are only re-settled. Only when the land they occupy is needed for some other greater common good that is greater than the good of the common. In far away locations in sub-standard housing really no different from slums, perhaps even worse. And at times the state even tries to spare itself the trouble of so re-settling them
For residents of Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi ‘the greater common good’ driven by the state arrived without notice on the afternoon of 5 July 2000 in the form of a bulldozer and truckloads of policemen. 50 of the more than 500 homes in this 50-year-old settlement were summarily demolished.
I met the residents of Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi for the first time on the morning of 6 July 2000 and have come to know them well as clients and friends. This is only a part-account of what they have done and gone through since they came to know of entitlements under the Master Plan. It is perhaps enough to explain why they cannot be called ‘encroachers’ and must be respectfully called citizens.
Responsible citizens – July 2000 to April 2002
Translated text of letter of 14.04.2002 from Samudayik Vikas Samiti, Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi to Vice Chairman Delhi Development Authority
Sub: DDA’s new scheme on the site adjoining the ~50 year old settlement of Rangpuri Pahari
Sir,
Along with several other local citizens’ groups, we also object to DDA’s above-mentioned scheme, on account of which we faced demolition without notice in July 2000. Our objection is based on two main grounds. One, we think that if land here continues to be used up like this for new schemes for new people, no land will be left to take care of our ‘backlog’ entitlements for planned housing under the Master Plan. Beyond saying that it is clear from the Master Plan provisions that housing for our pre-Plan settlement should have already been developed within the area we will not elaborate on this aspect, on which our planner consultant will be writing to you separately. The other basis for our objection is that, in view of the way in which DDA has been skirting since the year 2000 our requests for plans and details of its proposed development here, we get the distinct impression that its scheme is actually ‘unplanned’. Furthermore, in view of our experiences of the last two years, regrettably we also get the impression that DDA is simply not interested in planned development in line with the Master Plan. Through this letter we are placing a detailed account of our experiences over the last two years before you. We hope that you will, if you look at things from our perspective, be able to see how we reached these worrying conclusions. And, perhaps, also understand that for so long we have been only trying to engage DDA on a dialogue about our legitimate entitlements, which DDA is duty-bound to protect.
- On 05.07.2000 a bulldozer razed nearly 50 homes in our nearly 50-year old settlement with about 500 homes, without any notice. On 18.07.2000 we were able to meet with the Union Urban Development Minister, Mr Jagmohan, as a result of which he gave us written permission for reconstruction. Already we had filed a petition before the National Human Rights Commission, on which the Commission issued notice to Delhi and Union governments on 20.11.2000.
- For a few months after the demolition we believed that the zonal plan for this area, earmarked for rural / agricultural landuse in the Master Plan, would have been approved and public notice regarding landuse change issued. In this context, and with reference to the discussion with the Minister, a request to incorporate our old settlement in DDA’s new scheme was made through a letter to then DDA Vice-Chairman on 18.08.2000.
- The NHRC inquiry found that DDA, which had been denying responsibility for the demolition, had initiated it. Thereafter we started writing to DDA for details of its scheme. On 05.12.2000 we wrote to DDA Vice Chairman, Commissioner (Planning) and Commissioner (Land) for approved zonal plan, etc, for the area. On 20.12.2000, 27.12.2000 and 10.01.2001 we tried to procure the zonal plan from DDA’s offices. On 18.01.2001 we wrote again to DDA Vice Chairman, etc, as well as to the sales-counter in-charge, who later told us that there was no zonal plan for the area as yet. On 07.02.2001, 07.03.2001 and 11.04.2001 we wrote again to DDA Vice Chairman, etc. Despite writing every month between December and April and making several trips to the DDA sales counter, we were unable to get either the zonal plan or any information about it.
- In May we read in the newspapers about a sites-and-services scheme near us for shifting people from Nangal to which they were not willing to shift. On 14.05.2001 we wrote to you to request that we be shifted there instead. We asked also for details of other low-income housing schemes in the area. We also requested you to please propose in the court appointed coordination committee a comprehensive approach whereby, instead of having to shift from here to there and there to here, people might be able to shift to places of their choice. You did not reply to this letter.
- Then soil testing started on the site just west of us. Workers told us DDA flats were going to be constructed here. On 15.06.2001 we wrote to you to say
- The land further west has been used for a long time now for sanitary landfill. If this is the proposed land use than housing in the vicinity is not appropriate. And if it is not, then the same area may be most suited for water harvesting as there used to be a seasonal lake here. In that case, too, building flats may not be appropriate.
- East of the site is our 50 year old settlement and south of it is the 22 year old government school used by our children. Construction of flats here will create mutual problems for old and new residents.
- The site is located close to Sultangarhi tomb and the ridge and big construction on it may not be appropriate
- Then on 18.06.2001 some DDA officials visited the settlement in the late afternoon and told us that a DDA scheme was planned here for which we would be relocated some place far away. On 20.06.2001 we wrote to you to say:
- On 27.06.2001 we again wrote to you. And on 04.07.2001, when a full year had passed since the demolition without notice and repeated requests for clarifications about our entitlements thereafter, we wrote to you to say:
- Our ‘demonstration’ lasted two months. Two other settlements and the forum of students and parents from Rangpuri Paahri and the association of hawkers in Vasant Kunj, all of whom, like us, were ‘demanding’ implementation of Master Plan provisions, also joined us. Numerous flat residents, who were also ‘requesting’ you through their associations and their Federation for development according to the Master Plan, came to express solidarity. But not one official form DDA, the custodian of the Master Plan, showed any interest in this open display of citizens’ support for the Master Plan.
- Amazed at DDA’s indifference, four weeks into our demonstration we wrote to our ‘leaders’ a letter in which we said:
- If from any of our write-ups you think that our case is correct and clear, please prevail upon DDA to carry out in its regard planned development in line with the Master Plan throughout the city and to understand ground realities for the on-going Plan revision.
- If you think that our demonstration is legitimate please intervene to stop attempts being made every other day to stop it so that DDA does not get away so easily without answering questions raised by citizens.
- If you can, do explain to us how in the capital of the world’s largest democracy, is DDA’s rule any different from British rule, why masters must have to do so much to remind servants of their job, and how and why should we celebrate Independence Day on 15th August.
- Dismayed by the indifference of DDA, especially its planners, our planner consultant sent you on 31.07.2001 a report on the area’s slums in the context of Master Plan provisions. Already on 04.07.2001 she had sent you a request, along with a detailed note, to consider an area-based approach to Master Plan implementation in the discussion on ‘pilot projects’ going on in the court appointed coordination committee, of which you are a member. You did not respond to her either.
- On 10.08.2001 we wrote to Union Urban Development Minister, Mr. Jagmohan, whose commitment to planned development according to the Master Plan is well known, to say:
- On the other hand, on 21.08.2001 a JCB arrived on the site next to our settlement. We told officials that we have written to you that till we receive a reply to our questions from DDA we will continue to consider this scheme ‘unplanned’ and will oppose it as responsible citizens. On 21.08.2001 itself we wrote to you about the episode, reiterating our stand and its basis. You did not reply.
- On 05.09.2001, after getting the support of our elected representatives, we suspended our demonstration. On 06.09.2001 we sent you a memorandum re-stating our issues. In this we said that since our ‘demands’ for cheap housing, space for livelihood and education facilities for our children are entirely in line with what is anticipated and provided for in the Master Plan,
- In view of the situation arising out of the terrorist attack in the US on 11.09.2001, we decided against overt protest. On 17.09.2001 we wrote to you to say:
- Through all this, while DDA had expressed no interest in understanding our viewpoint, you all seemed bent upon misunderstanding us. On 16.08.2001 we had written to you about the attitude of officials in your Master Plan office to say:
- You said that we are using bad language in our demonstration. We are annexing herewith the main slogans. These show that we are talking mainly about our efforts for Master Plan implementation...
- You said what could we possibly tell you about the Master Plan as you have very qualified officers. We are not commenting on the qualifications of your planners. We are only saying that ground realities do not match the Plan...
- You said that our consultant is misleading us. We do not think so. But if this is the case, perhaps your qualified officers can guide us properly. It is noteworthy that this has not happened so far, although we have been standing for over a month outside the office that has perhaps your best planners.
- You said that our consultant has political ambitions and that if we go to the Supreme Court it will make chutney out of us. All this has nothing to do with us. Now that we know that the Master Plan is not anti-poor and has adequate provisions for us, our objective is only to support its implementation and to inform the revision process in order to ensure that, instead of removing shortcomings, provisions don’t get downsized.
- From your speech at the foundation stone laying function at Sultangarhi, complete with an exhibition of drawings of you scheme, on 25.09.2001 it was obvious that you continued to see us not as responsible citizens seeking rights but as beggars. Thereafter on 29.09.2001, despite the Prime Minister’s directions in the matter of hawkers in Delhi and despite the fact that DDA had been ignoring the requests of hawkers here for space for them as per the Master Plan, DDA mounted a high-handed confiscation action against them. Shocked by DDA’s attitude, local citizens’ groups engaging on planned development issues came together to form the Master Plan Implementation Support Group (MPISG). Through a copy of the letter to the Prime Minister, this information also reached you. But you did not react to it.
- Through MPISG we were trying to further our efforts in support of planned development. But DDA and others seemed to be ‘after us’. We as well as our lady consultant found ourselves caught in threatening, abusive and even violent instances. Information of some of these also reached you. We think that DDA’s ostrich like attitude towards those so seriously supporting the Master Plan proved its indifference not only towards citizens but also towards its own responsibility for planned development.
- Then in January 2002 DDA put up a board on the site west of us that announced a commercial complex. We wrote to you to ask to show us too, at least now, the approved plans. In March construction material arrived on the site. A week later the board was repainted to announce flats. We wrote again to say that if you all have decided what is to be built here, perhaps you could also tell us. DDA did not reply.
- After this there were some more instances of mis-behaviour with those seeking Master Plan implementation. On 01.03.2002 MPISG decided to participate in the municipal elections. Your guess that our consultant would get herself a ticket from some party turned out to be quite wrong. While many of us and, after the demonstration and some other instances afterwards also some politicians, did suggest this to her she only said she was just a planner and since no political party had, despite our requests during the demonstration, taken up Master Plan implementation as an issue, she had nothing to do with all this. It was only because some of us kept insisting that because of her ‘hang-ups’ we were losing the opportunity of an election that she suggested that if anyone else was willing to contest and if we would ask for a vote for the Master Plan, using the candidate as a proxy, we might be able to use the opportunity. This is what happened. We are especially proud that in both our election booths the Master Plan won. The day the counting proved that we had made it win, DDA started construction on its scheme west of us and made it lose.
- We do not know what you would see if you would stand where we stand, with our experiences of the last two years behind us, and look at the construction rising against the setting sun every day. But from where we stand it looks to us that while we have repeatedly demonstrated our responsibility and commitment towards the Master Plan, DDA has still to demonstrate its. Our Master Plan Implementation Support Group has proposed to you that DDA should come here and put to rest the concerns that its constituent groups have expressed about this scheme. We hope that DDA will accept this suggestion and discharge its responsibility.
Yours sincerely
sd/-President, Samudayik Vikas Samiti
Wayward state – April 2002 to June 2002
DDA did not respond to this letter, just as it did not respond to letters in the matter from a dozen other citizens’ groups drawn into the effort to secure planned development by the initiatives of the residents of Rangpuri Pahari and the hawkers’ association in Vasant Kunj. But protracted efforts with no results, even response, can break spirits, especially when ‘failure’ is as tangible as a massive construction site with brisk construction activity. By May nearly everyone had become resigned to DDA’s scheme. The Rangpuri Pahari Samiti was routinely ‘monitoring’ the site, albeit without much hope. So it was that it was not any government functionary, but the residents of Rangpuri Pahari who lodged complaints against the ‘reputed’ construction company when a worker died in an accident, when trees were cut, when an illegal bore-well was dug.
In mid-June we learned that the DDA scheme did not have mandatory land use change permission from the Ministry and, so, was illegal. With renewed hope, I began to write to the Ministry, but after three weeks of phone calls and correspondence it became obvious that the Ministry was unable or unwilling to stop the illegal scheme and I gave up.
Who’s the encroacher? July 2002 – September 2002
In July 2002 I received a letter from the National Human Rights Commission. Although the Rangpuri Pahari Samiti had filed a substantive petition on 10 July 2000 after the demolition on 5 July, I was officially the complainant as the enquiry had been started in response to my complaint over the phone on 6 July. The letter said that the enquiry report “fully established” demolition and “further stated that demolition had been done without prior notice or warning”. It said that in the report received from Delhi Government “It has been admitted that no prior notice was given to the encroachers, as there is no such practice”. (This, it was learned, was DDA’s view communicated by its Director (Land Management) to Principal Secretary Delhi Government). It said that in a report dated 1.1.2002 DDA has stated “that in para 2 of the Writ Petition... Khasra No.1337 is also involved”. (This was with reference to a stay granted by Delhi High Court in CW 1579/81, which DDA had told NHRC had been dismissed on 14.12.95 in WP 739/1981 and NHRC had sought clarification since the judgement did not mention the petition number)). Finally, the letter said that “In view of the report, no further action is considered necessary and the case is closed”. That DDA should call Rangpuri Pahari residents ‘encroachers’ made me cringe. The timing of the letter also made me worry because it suggested the possibility of DDA simply driving in with bulldozers any day, now that its scheme was happening. I wrote in mid-July to NHRC to pick holes in DDA’s viewpoint. I drew attention to the distinction between non-conforming and unauthorised uses, to DDA’s ‘practice’ being contrary to slum policy. etc, to the fact of the purpose of demolition being an illegal scheme, to the danger of NHRC Accepting such a view, etc. And I said, “I would have placed all the above before the Commission if I had been given an opportunity to do so before the case was closed... I beg your indulgence to place my views as complainant on record. This is only in a feeble attempt to try and ensure that DDA and GoNCT do not now use against us the Commission’s ‘acceptance’ of their incomplete and misleading information.”
In August Delhi Science Forum filed a PIL in Delhi High Court against DDA’s scheme on grounds of it not having mandatory permission and jeopardising the critical ground water regime in a duly notified area. On 11 September 2002 DDA admitted in court that its scheme did not have mandatory landuse change permission, which made it illegal under the Master Plan and Delhi Development Act. The counsel for the petitioner also showed photographs of illegal bore-wells on DDA’s site. And DDA, represented by its counsel who happens also to be a member of Parliament, justified all this on grounds of, besides meeting (with HIG flats) ‘housing shortage’, saving the site for expansion of adjoining ‘encroachments’. It even spoke of a large sum of (public) money that it was willing to set aside to take care of any deficiency pointed out by citizens as ‘proof’ of its ‘commitment’ to ‘planned development’ and ‘citizens’...
A more disgusting snapshot of where lying grass-eating fences have brought our democracy and how could hardly be possible.
Translated text of letter of 12.09.2002 from Samudayik Vikas Samiti, Rangpuri Pahari Malakpur Kohi to Vice Chairman Delhi Development Authority
Sir,
Yesterday we had gone to the hearing of the PIL filed by Delhi Science Forum in the High Court against the HIG flats being constructed by DDA next to our settlement. You would be aware that your lawyer admitted in the court that construction on this scheme has been going on for six months without mandatory permission. What shocked us was the way in which DDA, in an irresponsible bid to justify its illegal scheme, told the court that a ‘public interest’ served by the scheme would be to save this land from our ‘encroachment’ extending to it.
DDA, which is duty bound to secure development according to the Master Plan, must be having some legal or Constitutional or moral basis for making here HIG flats in excess of Master Plan norms, for selling LIG flats lately made in D-6 in its HIG scheme, for not developing cheap plots and houses here as per the Master Plan, for not responding to questions about entitlements under the Master Plan raised for two years by residents of pre-Plan settlements here, for labeling in court those asking for entitlements denied to them for 40 years ‘encroachments’, for justifying its own illegal scheme on grounds of saving land from such ‘encroachments’. What this basis might be, we have no clue.
In the matter of B-9 Arjun Camp, the court has directed that the residents approach you for clarifications regarding their entitlements under the Master Plan. We have no such court direction in our favour. Still, because we have been seeking this clarification from DDA for two years, because our settlement is older than the Master Plan, because we are citizens of Delhi and believe that our entitlements are settled in the Master Plan for Delhi, because we believe we have demonstrated a commitment to the Master Plan that is at least greater than what DDA has demonstrated, because DDA has called us ‘encroachers’ in the court and seemingly abdicated its responsibility by us, and because it is clear that although duty bound to secure planned development in public interest only in accordance with the Master Plan DDA is defining planned development and its role on its own terms, we think we might be entitled at least to being told what in DDA’s view constitute our citizens’ rights under the Master Plan.
We hope that you will consider us citizens and not ‘encroachers’ at least for the purpose of providing us a clarification.
Yours sincerely
sd/-President, Samudayik Vikas Samiti
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Comments (1)
sir madem plz i think rangpuri parhi ko demolaition nahi kerni chahia jo log waha per kai salo se reh reha hai i think un se kuch mooavja le ke unko whi pe sistemik roop se bsadena chhia kyo ki ab logoki kei ummeede wha se joori hai kai logo ne to apne bchcho ki shadi tek ker dali hai asikai sari bate hai ? Laki kai ase log bhi hai jo wahaki bhomi ke tes keri ker te hai? un logo ke uper koi action lenachhia (v v i)?
Posted by RUPESH KUMAR | December 27, 2006 1:04 PM