Delhis Unauthorised Colonies: An Issue Only for the Election Season? – The Quint

While governments continue to focus on building planned housing for the rich & the middle class and relocation of slum clusters, unauthorised colonies, which are somewhere in between, are left behind as missing piece of the mainstream housing discourse. Instead of focusing on regularisation of unauthorised colonies only during the election season, consistent efforts must be made for monitoring successful implementation of the scheme. This will provide relief to thousands of families in a time-bound manner, enabling them to tap into additional financial opportunities and welfare benefits.

The II and III-tier cities in India also need to focus on provisioning for low-income/affordable housing to avoid vast pockets of land within the city from becoming unauthorised colonies.

A sound regularisation programme with dedicated handholding support is the only way forward to enable upgradation of these colonies. This programme must be holistically planned with proper provisioning for basic infrastructure and social services by the local authorities in close consultation with residents.

This way, the government has a golden opportunity to recognise the inherent and organic way in which the city-makers, ie, the poor, have built the city over decades, which the post-colonial understanding of city planning in the Global South has historically ignored.

(Aditya Ajith and Ritu Kataria are co-founders of Corurban Foundation, a social impact organization based out of Delhi-NCR working on providing access to infrastructure in rural and urban low-income communities. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the authors' own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Delhis Unauthorised Colonies: An Issue Only for the Election Season? - The Quint