Let us assume that the goal is uncontested – Delhi, in 2041, should be without the inadequate housing, absent services, and insecure tenure...
Let us assume that the goal is uncontested – Delhi, in 2041, should be without the inadequate housing, absent services, and insecure tenure that define the “slum” or the “jhuggi jhopdi cluster”. Getting there is not easy.
Delhi has over 757 jhuggi jhopdi clusters that house (officially) between 11%-15% of the city’s population in neighbourhoods not just materially vulnerable but lacking pattas or title deeds. The city also has a new Draft master Plan 2041. What then does the draft say?
The Draft Plan’s imagination is a singular model: In-Situ Slum Rehabilitation. The In-Situ Slum Rehabilitation or ISSR model is one of public-private partnership where the jhuggi jhopdi cluster is rebuilt on the same site into vertical apartment-style housing. Residents are housed in one portion at the cost of the developer who recoups their investment by using the second portion (or a site elsewhere) for commercial use. The model is widely seen as a win-win: new housing stock, no cost to the state, more land brought into commercial use in the city.
Let us take its merits at their word. We must still ask: will it work in Delhi? Markets run not on fiat but on feasibility. Is there a market for In-Situ...
