Focus: Slum dwellers along Yamuna face eviction

It's a river that has always had a special resonance in New Delhi without the religious overtones that overlay the better known Ganges. But in recent times, the Yamuna, which marked a boundary of sorts for the greater capital area has been breached in many ways.

Not only is it a much diminished flow of water, Delhi's lifeline has also beeen swamped over the years by a fetid and teeming tenement on its banks.

The ramshackle huts and lean-tos are inhabited by slum dwellers, streaming in from the desperately poor heartlands of the surrounding states, created a nightmare not just in terms of their numbers and the severe strain it puts on the capital's stretched resources, but steadily changing the demographic colour of Delhi's already mixed population.

In a bid to clear the river banks and turn into a habitable and useful complement to the capital's many facilities, the Delhi High Court directed the central government and other civic agencies to remove all the illegal encroachments from the banks of the river Yamuna in the next two months.

This would have been the first step towards constructing a multi-utility sports complex of international standard along the river banks. The central government inspired complex would house cricket and football grounds, a centre for children and shopping malls.

The cricket stadium with a capacity of 75,000 and a football stadium of world class standard are to be built in phases.

Predictably, the directive has run up against politicians and their inability to decide whether they should back the improvement of Delhi's habitable araes or worry over what is certain to become an emotive issue in any future election.

The residents of this shanty colony run into hundreds of thousands and they all have ration cards, a potent weapon.

Many, while aware of the High Court order, are however seemingly oblivious of the Damocles Sword that hangs above their heads, while others realise they hold the key.

Manoj Tanojia, a resident of the area that is loosley referred to as Yamuna Pushta who has lived here since mid-80s takes comfort from the fact that "ever since the High Court order none of the authorities concerned have come here."

Tanojia, who works as a lift operator in one of central Delhi's high-rise buildings adds, "Several people living here were given accommodation at Papankalan in west Delhi a few years ago. We are waiting for our turn."

Mohammad Gulzar, a sub-contractor with a telephone company and another resident adds: "If the government were to shift us from here, they would have to provide us alternative accommodation. We can't be expected to suddenly live on the streets with our families."

Daily wage earners, rickshaw pullers, small businessmen and petty shopkeepers, they all say the same. The Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit has naturally expressed shock and resentment against the demolition of slums in south Delhi.

She alleged, "The slums were razed at the behest of the Centre which controls the Delhi Development Authority (DDA)." It is in contravention of the Delhi government's policy of providing alternate land before demolishing the existing houses, she said.

She declared that she would leave no stone unturned to make Delhi a world class city, minus its slums and unauthorised colonies, a Delhi that would have clean, green and colourful surroundings. But, not without giving the slum dweller an alternative home, she said.

The Yamuna, the main source of water for Delhi residents, and the slum dwellers in particular, is a vast floating sea of sewage, with open drains and the effluent from foundries and chemical factories adding to the potent and toxic cocktail that flows into it daily.

Town planners and environmentalists have again run up against powerful vested interests who block moves to remove the factories that line the river.

City authorities have turned a blind eye for years to the flow of illegals. Statistics show that from 1951 to 1998 the number of slums increased from 12,000 to 6,00,000, with the migration rate being 4-500,000 per year, mainly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who feed the city's daily-wage workforce at numerous construction sites in the city.


The government's slow pace of resettling the slum dwellers has been attacked by the High Court which has said that by the existing standards it could take more than two centuries to solve the problem of slums!

So far, most of the demolitions in recent months have been for the Delhi Metro Rail project.

But with authorities at the centre homing in on the Yamuna Development Project, which envisages transforming the land on either side of the Yamuna, the fate of the some of the largest slum clusters in the capital in the Yamuna Pushta area will have to be decided soon.