View of Slums in the First Master Plan of DelhiAARUSHI JAIN | SHIVANG BANSAL | SUMAIRHA MUMTAZ

Image Source : PBSNewshour

• The Planned development of the city of Delhi was started with the preparation of the Master Plan for Delhi, promulgated in September 1962, covering the period upto 1981. This Master Plan was prepared by DDA with the support from Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) of Govt. of India and some subject matter experts from Ford Foundation.

• This Master Plan was prepared for projected 46 lacs population of Delhi in the year 1981. However, the Census-1981 reported 62.20 lakhs population of Delhi in 1981.

• It was the first step towards modern planning in India. It aimed at the integrated development of Delhi.

• ‘The Government of India has notified for acquisition about 35,000 acres of land all around the present built up area, which will be sufficient for the growth of Delhi according to plan for the next 10 years or so.’

• Steps are also being taken to develop land for industry, commerce, residential uses and community facilities.

• All this land will remain under public ownership and developed plots or undeveloped land will be leased out to individuals and co-operative societies on an equitable basis, so that the benefit of planned growth accrues to the common man and the Government can also have a share of the future rise in the price of such land.

• The ownership of land by Government makes planning and the implementation of plans easier and is imperative if slum clearance, redevelopment and subsidised housing and provision of community facilities according to accepted standards have to be undertaken, as, indeed, they must be in Delhi, in a determined way.

MPD on slum clearance and expansion of city

Image Source : http://holidaymapq.comSource : MPD62, Section 2, Page 7

In a nutshell, the MPD 1962, intends to propose acquisition of land for the expansion of the city at the cost of clearance of slums within that land. However, it doesn’t propose finer details about the aftermath of the slum clearance or for that matter, the rehabilitation of the slum dwellers to be evicted.

Further, the MPD intends to retain control of the land by leasing out the land which indirectly gives them the flexibility to even cancel the lease for implementation of plans as and when required. This means that even the JJ clusters (legally leased out housing for the poor) can be demolished in future to give way for the implementation of government plans.

De-slumming Delhi | What happens later?

Clear all slums on the land to be

acquired

But what about those who lose their

homes?

• Realising that in the immediate future, there cannot be large scale demolition, due to the financial burden involved on public bodies, the low rent paying capacity of the slum dwellers and the need for keeping them nearer the work places, it is recommended that a major effort be made in the immediate future only to improve the slums rather than demolition and redevelopment.

• Another measure intended to relieve the inhuman conditions in the slum areas is the recommendation that basic amenities like water, drainage and electricity etc. may be immediately made available even though certain areas are earmarked for redevelopment.

While at one point, the MPD 1962 proposes slum clearance for acquisition of land, on the contrary, the document stresses on the need for a major effort to be made to improve the slums rather than demolition and redevelopment. This shows a mixed stand on sums as per the MPD 1962.

It should be noted here that slums are not legalised entities as per the law. And further, slum improvement is in a way a step towards legalising slum areas which have no building regulations over time.

MPD ’62 on slum upgradation

Can we be legalised?

Image Source : Baba Tamim, Aljazeera

Source : MPD62, Section 7, Page 27

Zonal Development Plans for New Areas

• The Municipal Corporation has drawn up schemes for the relocation of the basti squatters in suitable areas not too far away from major work centres.

• It is recommended that while the structures and facilities may be below standard in order to keep down the constant rents, the space standard in order to keep down the cost and rents, the space standards for schools, parks, streets etc. should be as for any other area given in the Sub-Division Regulations.

• Moreover, these should be integrated with a larger neighbourhood where there is a mixture of different social and income groups, as well as housing types.

• In addition, it is also recommended that reasonable areas should be earmarked in several zones for the low income group who migrate to Delhi on account of the relentless “push” from the rural areas.

The above recommendation ties up with Nabeel Hamdi’s idea of the importance of informality where the MPD recommends integration of the low income settlements with the larger neighbourhood where there is a social mix.

However, the MPD doesn’t give any guidelines in particular for the low income group migrating to Delhi except for a lease-hold plotted model which in the long run, can be a development constraint for the city at large.

Image Source : theepochtimes.com

Source : MPD62, Section 7, Page 27

• As in the relocation of the busti squatters, sub-standard development and construction may be permitted but the space standards for the facilities should be those given for the density on which the layout is planned. It is recommended that building by-laws should be considerably relaxed in such cases not only to permit sub-standard development but also to enable the construction of low cost cheap houses or huts. This will keep down the cost for development upto standard in the not too distant future. Otherwise these will develop into slums.

• It is also recommended that any village or abadi which is overtaken by urban development should not be left as such, as otherwise, the city will be pock marked with the type of slums such as Kotla Mubarakpur but should be redeveloped and integrated into the neighbourhood. New development will follow the Zonal Development Plans and the sanctioning authority should ensure that all development take place with proper lay-out and adequate community facilities and in accordance with the desirable and optimum densities prescribed in the Master Plan.

• It is equally necessary to set up a firm administrative machinery for effective enforcement of planning standards and community wide inspection of services and prevention of squatting and encroachment. It is also necessary to adopt a comprehensive system of building, sanitary and other codes which prescribe adequate minimum standards of health, sanitation and safety.

Here, the MPD gives a clear intention of control over what is built to avoid the further development of new low income housing into slums.

Clear stand on preventing development of new slums

Source : MPD62, Section 7, Page 27

• Minimum plot size - The minimum size of an individual residential plot for a two-storey, two family dwelling, should be 125 square yards. In the case of low cost housing for low income groups and slum rehousing the minimum plot size could be 80 square yards but not less.

• All the regularised unauthorised colonies should have covered area on the terms and conditions on which they have been regularised, such as, one or two storey structures, one or two families per plot.

• Where a barsati is permitted, not more than 25 per cent of the covered area on the ground floor or the floor immediately below the barsati or 500 square feet, whichever is less, should be allowed to be covered including the area covered by a staircase leading to the barsati. The barsati may be enclosed.

The MPD doesn’t propose a housing model for the rehabilitation of the lower income group. The idea of a plotted development is always at a high risk of developing into a slum-like settlement. And what is worse is that such settlements are legalised.

Instead, at that time, the MPD could have proposed an alternative cluster development model for the housing of the poor.

Is the plotted model really the best solution for the low income group?

MPD ’62 on plots for the LIG

Image Source : The Seattle Globalist

Source : MPD62, Section 5, Page 55

The first Master Plan of Delhi in 1962 described the walled city as a “slum, congested, filthy and obsolete” and proposed that 45% of the population be shifted out

• One of the major recommendation is to improve the circulation in the Old City by a system of streets that will involve minimum widening but will at the same time ensure smooth flow of traffic.

• There will be enough parking areas so that these pockets are accessible to vehicles but these will not go through them.

• Under the zoning regulations it has been recommended that uses which do not conform to the land use shown in the Land Use Plan may be shifted to their respective use zones according to a time schedule. Among the first to be shifted are the noxious and nuisance industries and fire- hazard trades which abound in the Old City at present, causing congestion and injurious health conditions.

Decongesting the Walled City | Is this really a slum?

Has the meaning of slums come down to any building that isn’t governed

by building regulations ?

Image Source : Amazing India Blog

Source : MPD62, Section 7, Page 27

Learnings from ‘The Placemaker’s Guide’

• 1950s-60s

In the early 1950s and 1960s, the need for reform in housing and urban settlements was largely driven by the desire to build a new Utopia, free of slums and informal settlements.

Everywhere, in cities of countries in the north and south, the demolition of slums and clearance of informal settlements was the norm. ‘The values and living conditions of squatter settlements were obstacles to modernisation and had to be obliterated.

• Post 1980s

In 1999, the World Bank and UN-Habitat founded the Cities Alliance. Their focus was on eradicating urban slums, or at least improving conditions for some one hundred million slum dwellers by 2020.

More recently, there were the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000 at the UN and which set out in Goal 7, Target 10 to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation and Target 11 to achieve by 2020 significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

Cities in the developing world will account for 95 percent of urban expansion over the next two decades and by 2030, four billion people will live in cities – 1.4 billion in slums.