Right housing Rights/Rangpuri Pahari

Rangpuri Pahari Chronicle

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 themFor 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 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 2002In July 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