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By Tripti Lahiri, Agence France-Presse
NEW DELHI: Steel, marble and granite are high on
the list of materials needed to build homes in well-to-do suburbs on
the outskirts of India’s sprawling capital—but so are plastic
sheets, cardboard and reeds.
As fields increasingly sprout concrete and glass
condos in place of wheat and mustard, shanty towns too have grown to
house tens of thousands pushed out as New Delhi expands its
“world-class” ambitions.
Mannequin maker Mohammed Nasir used to live on
the river bank, where a sports village is now being constructed as
the capital prepares to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
“They said they needed to make room for all
those who were going to come for the games,” said Mohammed Nasir.
After the speeches, bulldozers tore down his
home and Nasir and his family ended up on the streets.
Eventually they leased a tiny plot in a
3-year-old shanty, or jhuggi, called Savda Ghevra, 40 kilometres (25
miles) northwest of the city center.
There, they built a reed hut.
Five years ago, as the city embarked on a huge
redevelopment drive, the Supreme Court cleared the way for mass
evictions from prime land, ruling that the government need not
provide squatters with alternative housing.
Redevelopment advocates cheered. But in a
booming city of 17 million where much of the land is owned by
government agencies that have failed to construct enough housing, at
least half the population has been forced to squat in slums or other
illegal housing, according to official figures.
It’s a nationwide problem, with slums
multiplying 70 percent in the decade since 1991, when India
introduced market reforms.
Millions have flocked to urban centers for work,
contributing to the current housing shortage of 25 million homes
across Indian cities.
In one respect, the markets have done their
work.
Tens of thousands of middle-class families have
used newly available credit to buy homes with marble floors, built
by private developers to the south and east of Delhi.
Banks say that more than 40 percent of housing
loans issued in the capital region go to the southern suburb of
Gurgaon, home to gated communities and call centers.
Developers expect to add more than 500 million
square feet (45.4 million square meters) of housing around Delhi and
six other cities in the next three years, according to global real
estate consultant Knight Frank.
Most will become apartments and villas starting
at $80,000, putting them far out of the reach of blue-collar workers
such as Nasir.
“The market is not catering to those kinds of
[people],” says housing official Prasanna Mohanty.
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