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A secret report of the Chandigarh Administration says about 450 acres of land owned by the Administration, valued in the open market at around Rs 550 crore, has been grabbed by slum-dwellers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, making slum-dwellers a readymade vote bank for politicians. In recent slum-removal drives, about 150 acres of land was freed till the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed that the drive be halted on the plea that ‘poor’ slum-dwellers would be rendered homeless.

The reality of some jhuggi-dwellers, however, is a far cry from their projected ‘poverty’. In recent slum-demolition drives, the Chandigarh Administration stumbled upon people who were not all that poor to enjoy unreasonable benefits and pity. At least three slum-dwellers owned cars, close to 90 per cent of the jhuggis had refrigerators, including top-of-the-line frost-free brands, almost every jhuggi had a desert cooler and two of them even had airconditioners!

Of course, colour television sets were found by the dozen and few jhuggis even had VCD players. All run on stolen power. Several slum- dwellers also owned two-wheelers. And all this from localities which policy-makers feel house the ‘poorest of the poor’. Shyam Lal Kanauj who was displaced in a recent demolition drive in Palsora village located on the south-western tip of Chandigarh, owned the latest model of a frost-free fridge, plush sofas and used a motor cycle to carry out his job of a small-time contractor. By no yardstick can he be termed ‘poor’ yet he enjoys several benefits accruing to slum-dwellers.

Another resident of the same slum was a retired army jawan living on pension, now working elsewhere with a monthly earning of more than Rs 13,000. Another man was running a dera from where he counselled slum-dwellers about day-to-day problems. All this in the hope of cornering a free house!

And this is not like Mumbai where people have been forced to live in slums due to paucity of space. Many not-so-poor people reside in slums out of the greed for a free house, which the Chandigarh Administration promises under its much-criticised policy for rehabilitating slum-dwellers.

The root cause of the problem is the 1979 scheme to rehabilitate slum-dwellers. The policy was an offshoot of the need for housing the slum-dwellers who had come to the city when it started developing in the 1950s. French Architect Le Corbusier did not earmark any area for housing the poor. Since slums were growing, the scheme was started to give houses free of cost or on subsidy to jhuggi-dwellers. Thus space was provided for small one-room or two-room flats at paltry rates varying between Rs 10 and Rs 40 a month. In the post-terrorism phase, these flats started commanding a premium and slowly it became a business for slum-dwellers to first start living in a jhuggi and then wait for the Administration to dole out free or subsidised flats. Thus large tracts of land owned by the Administration were encroached upon and slums came up with renewed vigour.

The recovery of some top-of-the-line consumer goods in the recent demolition drive raised the eyebrows of senior officers in the Administration but they could do nothing as the political leaders wanted the drive to be stopped.

This raised the question: Are the slum-dwellers really poor? Incomes in average slum households vary between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 per month. This is based on a simple calculation that a slum-dweller working as a fruit vendor will bring home about Rs 5,000 a month and his wife working as a maid will earn another Rs 2,500. This does not mean all people living in slums earn this much. There are the genuine poor also. An official feels the rehabilitation scheme should be based on economic criteria and not a cut-off date, as is the case now.

About 450 acres owned by the Chandigarh Administration have been grabbed by slum-dwellers from UP and Bihar

Actually, the entire cycle from when the slum-dwellers come in and squat on government land and then get a free house is not as simple as it seems. Officially, it has been classified as housing for the poor. It involves crores by way of construction of houses, free houses for slum-dwellers and, of course, a premium when these houses are sold. Previously, houses of slum-dwellers have been sold off by the allottees and also middlemen of the Estate office. The Vigilance Bureau of the Chandigarh Administration is looking into the allotment of plots made in the name of dead persons under the rehabilitation scheme at Mauli Jagran.

The dynamics and politics of this policy are multi-pronged. It suits the encroachers, the officialdom, politicians and powerful lobby of builders, who make crores in the process of building homes for slum-dwellers. The only losers are native farmers, who’re forced to move out when their land is acquired for rehabilitating slum-dwellers. Not only do these farmers lose their lands and source of income, the entire demographic profile of the city undergoes a change(see box).

The recent controversy was triggered by the bold decision of the new Punjab Governor and UT Administrator, Justice O.P .Verma (retd), to remove all illegal squatters. In 1997, the Chandigarh Administration had decided that all slum-dwellers who were on the voters’ list as on December 8, 1996, would be given free or subsidised houses while the other would not be eligible for this. Keeping this in mind, the new Administrator reasoned that all ineligible slum-dwellers should go. An estimated 16,000 families are eligible for the scheme. However, a survey is on and the exact number of dwellers eligible for rehabilitation can be known only once the findings are out. About 2200 families have already been identified.

Thus a demolition drive was started, much to the discomfort of the politicians from both major parties, the Congress and the BJP. City residents were happy till orders for removing the slums were modified, saying that all those who were not eligible as on December 8, 1996, could stay on and would also get a house.

The earlier message sent out by the drive that Chandigarh was not an open house for encroachers was lost. The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, I.D. Swami, at a press conference in Chandigarh ordered that no more demolitions should be carried out.

Many not-so-poor people reside in slums to get a free house, which the Chandigarh Administration promises under its policy for rehabilitating slum-dwellers

Six months ago, it was pointed out that a mafia was involved in bringing people from eastern UP and Bihar for a fee of Rs 15,000 per migrant. An agent from here contacts his man in Bihar and promises a jhuggi, a rickshaw on rent and a ration card as part of the package. Each day, about 20 persons are brought into the city on the promise that the ration card will lead to a free house in Chandigarh in the long run. It is almost like the travel agents sending Punjabi youth abroad. In this case, however, there is nothing illegal in bringing people from UP and Bihar. The main attraction for them is free housing, an official says, adding that discontinuing this rehabilitation scheme is the only way to save Chandigarh. Already facilities in the city are under strain.

Though migrant labour is required, the number has to be limited, says the official. The labour of bigger contractors stays with them only. Small-time masons, labourers, rickshaw-pullers, roadside fruit-sellers and women working as house maids live in slums.

The green area in the city is also facing a threat. It has been taken up by shops of kabadis or such sundry traders. Such activities in the open or in kutcha-pucca structures are being generally run by small traders without electricity or with kundi connections (pilfered from the main line).

Unauthorised residences in cattle sheds are mostly of migrants, who have purchased plots from unscrupulous property dealers and raised kutcha-pucca structures to serve as residences or cattle sheds. Such activity is more pronounced around lal doras of villages. Such structures have also come up on agricultural lands around phirni. Some property dealers have been misleading the ignorant migrants and selling out plots in violation of all restrictions, particularly in Mani Majra.

Not to miss the wine shops and ahatas which have come up mostly in tin-structures without any permission. Then there are godowns opposite the railway station, which are catering to the needs of trade and industry. Another 50 acres have been encroached upon under the garb of religious structures. A number of religious structures have been raised without any antiquity and history.

This, admits an official, is being done in order to get land exempted from acquisition. The existing policy for religious sites is also neither fully adopted nor clear.

Photos by Parvesh Chauhan

The biggest losers

Villagers who made way for the development of Chandigarh have been the biggest losers in this game. And nobody seems to be coming to their rescue despite the National Commission of Minorities (NCM) having passed instructions to the Administration to do the maximum for the uprooted families.

The Commission even rapped the Administration for the changing demographic profile of the surrounding villages. Rehabilitation colonies have been built outside the lal dora of the 22 villages. This means the Punjabis are today in a minority and close to 75 per cent of the votes in these villages are of those of slum-dwellers, who are non-Punjabis.

In the past, the Pind Bachao Committee — a body of villagers whose lands were acquired —had alleged discrimination, saying these villages were being forcibly acquired to house and build colonies for slum-dwellers. People whose lands were acquired were forced to move out. The 5000 families which used to live in these 11 erstwhile villages were assured by the Administration in front of the National Human Rights Commission that the case of Punjabi families was being examined for providing maximum possible benefits to the eligible applicants.

In the past three decades, the Chandigarh Administration has rehabilitated several thousand migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. However, not a single Punjabi villager, who had been evicted for the sake of the development of the city, has been rehabilitated.

The biggest blow to the villagers was that lands acquired by the Chandigarh Administration from these 11 villages was used to establish rehabilitation colonies for slum-dwellers and develop new sectors.

Other forms of land misuse

Another class of people, the money bags, are not encroachers upon government land but are building farmhouses on their own land to offer them as one-stop shops for holding marriage functions complete with puja ghars, flower decorations and top-of-the-line catering. Of course, they cannot be equated with slum-dwellers as they are on the opposite end of the economic spectrum.
Swank marriage palaces have come on places which have been given permission to be used as poultry farms, cattle sheds, farmhouses. Such marriage palaces can be seen primarily on the main Chandigarh-Ambala highway.
As per the provisions of the Punjab New Capital (Periphery) Control Act, 1952, no construction can be raised in the controlled area and periphery (10 miles' radius from outer boundary of controlled area) and no land can be put to any use other than agriculture without the prior permission of the Deputy Commissioner.
During the 1980s, the Administration flouted this, and gave permissions for some 10-2 farmhouses. Now permission is not being given for farmhouses. Some poultry farms too had been given permission. Similarly, some brick-kilns were also given permission in view of the city’s requirements. Most of these permissions are being misused for commercial purposes or for purposes other than specified. For instance, most of the poultry farms have now been converted into godowns or residential places.