| Tales from the margins: Slum dwellers left without a home |
30th Nov 2013
|
 | 
Stills from the slum demolition site | Photo: T.S. Bedi
handigarh, the first planned city of Independent India, is one of the most desirable cities to live in the country not just for the elite but also for the migrating classes. Though the affordability quotient does not bother the elite class, it is a major reason behind illegal colonies coming up along the periphery of the city which collectively cover more than 70 acres of land in different parts of Chandigarh.
In a demolition drive, the UT administration recently wiped out colony number 5, one of the biggest slums in Chandigarh and is set to eradicate encroachments in the remaining 11 colonies in the city.
The Chandigarh Administration it seems is on a mission to completely erase all illegal colonies off the city's map. As the drive to make city slum-free advances, several questions arise, many of which have remained unanswered so far. First, these colonies were not raised overnight, and no one can really be held responsible for it. At the end of the day, only those who have lost their shelters can feel the chill during the shivering nights of the ongoing winter. Guardian20 scrutinizes the drive and registers all the different responses.
Rajpal Yadav, a migrant labourer from UP told Guardian20, "In the hope of getting a house from the government we shifted to our uncle's house three years back. All our dreams were shattered when the administration started this drive and ordered us to evacuate the house. I am trying to get some place in colony number 4 but if that doesn't work, we will be moving back to UP soon as there is no place left to stay."
"We wanted our children to study in good schools and lead a full life but now we'll have to return to UP and start all over again," says Rajpal's wife Somawati who used to work as a maid in sector 44.
Romalal, another slum resident, who is the sole bread earner in the family, had been staying in the colony for the past four years and worked as a watchman at a warehouse. He says, "Back home my wife and two daughters are more affected than me. I had promised my daughters who are four and five years old, that I'll take them with me and make them study here so that they can get a good job in the future but now it all seems like a distant dream."
It is worth mentioning here that one-room tenements were constructed by the Chandigarh Housing Board in Dhanas to rehabilitate the slum dwellers of Colony No. 5 and most of them received notifications to shift after PM Manmohan Singh handed over keys to the beneficiaries in September. Despite the allotment of more than 8,000 houses, the colony remained intact; rather the beneficiaries invited their relatives to stay in the houses in the hope of getting accommodations by the administration soon. In an interview with Guardian20 Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Shyne, said, "The encroachment has been successfully relinquished. This was government's land and is back to the government. The occupants have been rehabilitated and the same will be done with the remaining unauthorized colonies."
Arvind Thakur, a city-based lawyer has taken up the slum-dwellers' case and has filed a complaint against the Chandigarh home secretary, deputy commissioner and housing board officials over the alleged untimely demolition of colony number 5, with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Thakur said, "I have mentioned in my complaint that this demolition drive has been conducted without any prior planning and has been done in a very haphazard manner. This should have been done in phases so that uprooted people could get time to find alternate option to reside. The winters have started engulfing the city and these homeless residents are forced to spend cold nights in the open. Moreover, no medical team was present at the spot during the demolition and any epidemic could have broken out there. Moreover, we are sure that hundreds of children will have to leave schools mid-way because of this unplanned demolition."
|
No comments:
Post a Comment