Skip to main content

India's urban plight: Of 49,000 families forcibly evicted in 2010-15, less than 20% found "eligible" for resettlement

 
An estimated 49,000 families, or over 234,000 people, in urban areas were evicted forcefully from their homes between 2010 and 2015, according to information collated by the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), which represents tens of people’s organizations fighting for housing rights across India.
The just-released HLRN report, “Housing and Land Rights in India”, says, this number “only reflects cases reported to the HLRN”, adding, “The actual figure, therefore, is likely to be much higher.”
At the same time, the HLRN says, during 2014-15, thanks to “social activism, civil society advocacy, and timely intervention from courts, saved over 47,000 families – who received threats of eviction—from losing their homes.”
The report believes, “All reported forced evictions have violated multiple human rights of affected persons, including their rights to adequate housing, work/livelihood, land, health, food, water, education, information, participation, and security of the person and home.”
Pointing out that “children and women are the worst affected”, the report says, “The failure to provide compensation for loss of housing and possessions has resulted in growing indebtedness that adversely impacts the right to an adequate standard of living.”
The report says, “Eviction Impact Assessment studies carried out by HLRN and its partners in Baljeet Nagar, Delhi, and Topsia, Kolkata, for instance, revealed that each evicted family suffered a loss of over Rs 150,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively, apart from the psychological trauma suffered by the families because of the eviction.
“In majority of instances of forced evictions in India, the state does not provide rehabilitation to the affected families on grounds that they are ‘encroachers,’ ‘squatters,’ ‘illegal,’ or ‘ineligible’,” the report says, adding, “Most states have a ‘cut-off’ date before which the individual/family should have been living in the city in order to qualify for resettlement benefits.”
“For instance, in Mumbai it is the year 2000, while in Delhi it has recently been changed to February 14, 2015”, the report says, adding, “Each affected family has to furbish a list of requisite documents in order to be considered ‘eligible’ for resettlement.”
The report comments, “The continued existence of a ‘cut-off date’ for the urban poor is nothing but an institutionalized tool of exclusion and places an inordinate burden on the urban poor to prove the duration of their residence in the city. Families that are not resettled are forced to make their own housing arrangements” or are “rendered homeless.”
“For the small percentage of families—approximately 15–20 per cent—considered eligible for resettlement, the state provides alternative plots or housing in undeveloped colonies, generally located on city peripheries and at great distances from affected persons’ places of work, education, and healthcare”, the report says.
The report says, “Issues such as tenure insecurity resulting from short-term conditional leases; absence of basic services; and, the lack of safety for women, are reported from most resettlement sites across the country, including in Bawana, Narela, and Holambi Kalan in Delhi.”
“In Gujarat”, says the report, “Over 15,000 families displaced from various projects, including the Sabarmati and Kankaria Riverfront development, and road-widening projects, have been inadequately resettled and continue to witness deprivation, violence, and conflict.”
---
Click HERE to download the report

Comments

TRENDING

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

Gujarat a police state? How top High Court advocate stunned a senior-most journalist

Rajdeep Sardesai, Anand Yagnik This is a continuation of my earlier blog on well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai's lecture in memory of the late Achyut Yagnik at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA). I was a little surprised when I received the intimation about the venue for the lecture.

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Why predictions of an imminent collapse of the Russian economy may be wrong

A veteran Canadian journalist, settled in Russia, stated in a Facebook post that President Donald Trump "is apparently listening to experts who tell him that Russia's economy is on the verge of 'imploding,' and if he just squeezes a bit harder," his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "will fall into line."

Talking of increased corporate control over news, Rajdeep Sardesai 'evades' alternative media

When I received an intimation that well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai was to speak at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on February 2, my instant reaction was: I know what he is going to say—his views are quite well known; he wouldn’t be saying anything new. Yet, I decided to go and listen to him to catch his mood at a time when the media, as he (and I) knew it, is changing fast due to the availability of new technological tools that were not accessible even a decade ago.

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

Gujarat's water anarchy? 16.7% of Narmada water going to industry, 33% of targeted area irrigated: Govt insider

The Narmada project is something that has always excited me, including how much water will be distributed and to which sector. A few days ago, when I was talking to a top Gujarat government insider, I was a little surprised when I was told that it is up to the “respective states to decide how much Narmada water they would distribute among various sectors” out of the total quota allocated to the four states—Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan—as per the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal award of 1979.