Unsettled city

Stories of evacuation are not new to the world and especially not new to India. The marginal section has always been at the mercy of government and is often dispersed suiting the government’s need. In 2002, a similar incident took place in the national Capital which created a lot of buzz but failed to reap any substantial results.

After 22 years of miserable existence not much has changed for the Yamuna Pushta slum dwellers, only now they are termed with a different name, the Bhawana villagers.

Roshan has lived in the Bhawana village for twelve years still she can not forget the night her 30-year-old house was taken down. “We started our lives in Delhi with that house and around that area. We were living in Yamuna Pushta for 30 years and we invested all our saving in the house. The government charged us Rs 7,000 for a piece of land in Bhawana area which is a secluded region of the city.”                                    

The problem with resettlement is not banishing slums but the story after the same. Slum dwellers from Yamuna Pushta were promised a better place but were apparently dumped into another slum. “A big farm was cut into small pieces which were allotted to families without considering their size. The major drawback for me and other dwellers was to leave a house (in which most they invested their life savings) for nothing but a piece of land. We were also deprived of basic facilities like electricity, bathrooms and drinking water,” said Roshan.                                    

According to locals, they were provided with proper water supply after two years of their settlement in the region, before which women in the village had to walk kilometres to fetch water from the only handpump in the area. The situation hasn’t  changed much as the area with a population of over 2.5 lakh have only five bathrooms and no regular water supply. 

“The condition of the bathrooms is beyond repair, they are not suitable for use as they are only five for the crowd numbered in lakhs. This force us to defecate in open,” said Roshan. With no basic facilities Bhawana, a possible structured province has sadly turned into a proper slum, prone to diseases. This can be proved with the fact that approximately 40 people died of dengue this year. If the locals are to be believed, casualties are not new to them as they have seen worst in the past.                                                                                         

In spite of being an area prone to diseases, it does not have any hospital or even a dispensary. “Being an isolated region it’s difficult to get immediate transportation during emergencies. So if a person is in a critical condition chances are that he/she may not survive,” said Arjun, a school teacher.

                                     

Like any other slum, health wasn’t the only issue with people of Bhawana. With people living hutments, cooking gas tanks, fragile electricity wires cause frequent fire episodes in the area. “Earlier we were scared to leave our children alone in the house alone as every week fire used to destroy many establishments. And it was difficult to control such situations as there is no fire brigade in the region,” said Aftana Khan, a resident.   

Fire episodes substantially reduced when Robin Rana foundation, an NGO built pukka houses for around 22,000 people in the region. Living in the house of bricks is a sign of relief for many but the majority still remains deprived of the basic leisure. With no cooperation from MCD, the area still lacks a proper sewage system and the houses built by the foundation also fail to provide bathroom facility. A proper shack has improved living conditions but the issue with sanitation remains the same.        

Relocating isn’t only about shifting home, social capital is equally at stake for the people. A majority of the slum dwellers are poorly educated labourers and rickshaw pullers and their work is mostly based in central Delhi. Those who used to live close to their workplace found themselves 15 to 20 kilometres away, resulting in higher transportation costs and even loss of livelihood, in some cases. Considering the fact that their earnings are as meager as their living, there is not much left to save.

“I leave my home at 4 in the morning by bus and it takes 3 hours to reach central Delhi. There I have my rickshaw parked, I work for the whole day and reach home by midnight. There is this fixed transportation cost of Rs 2500 which I have to bear whether I earn or not. Considering the amount that I spend on my travelling, there is not much left to save,” said Raju, father of three. 

Because of rapid inflation and high costs of living, Bhawana has turned out to be among the preferred destination for the migrant population. Being an affordable area, the migrants are willing to adjust in these cramped and squalid settlements of the colony. “A lot of people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are settled in this area. People living in this region give rooms at marginal prices to people from their natives place,” said Vikram Singh, DCP, outer region.

Resettling a colony is a delicate issue which requires government's full attention. Ironically, this didn't happen in the case of Bhawana colony. Poor people living in different regions of Delhi were brought to one place and were asked to rebuild their lives around the most inhabitable space. 

Dreadful living conditions along with insufferable poverty, the circumstances in itself are criminal generic. It took a little time for the area to become a hub of criminals. “Criminals are apparently produced in this region”, says Vikram.

Helplessness and the urge to make quick buck nudges youngsters to fall into the vicious circle of criminal activities. And ones a person realises that making money out of crime is a lot easier, chances are that violence and crime will become his natural companions.

“The living conditions in such resettled colonies are not very different to what we have in jail. Therefore, youngsters don't hesitate in committing a crime. The urge to escape the suffocating world of poverty prompts them towards corrupt, false means,” said Vikram Singh.

“I saw the condition of these slum dwellers shifted from Yamuna Pushta slum in the year 2006 and I saw it grow into another Dharavi. I then decided to remove the word slum from this region and to build concrete homes for these people. There is no proper range system in the area and the existing drains are never cleaned. Apparently, there are dead animals trapped inside these drains which are causing diseases. Every fifth home have one handicapped child in the region,” said Robin Rana, founder of Robin Rana foundation.

In an era of smart cities, bullet trains and foreign investments there lies an area in the national Capital unknown to those in power.