• Housing and Spatial Segregation: Snippets from Aurangabad 

    Experiences of housing emanate, not just from aspects of affordability, economic activity and city planning, but also link back to how social, cultural and political events and processes have unfolded over time. This article is based on fieldwork done in Aurangabad and traces the historical evolution of housing and spatial segregation in the city.

    By on June 8, 2022

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  • How the content of demands shapes government responsiveness: Excerpts from a Discussion

    This post features highlights from the 146th talk in the series of CPR-CSH Urban Workshops, where Tanu Kumar, a postdoctoral researcher at William and Mary, talks about the nature of formal complaints lodged by citizens against bureaucrats, and how the content of these demands shape government responsiveness. The discussion delves into her research looking at theory and evidence from Mumbai, which distinguishes between complaints demanding the reallocation of resources between citizens and those that simply require some level of state capacity to address.

    By on June 3, 2022

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  • Governing the Houseless in India during COVID-19 Lockdown: Excerpts from a discussion

    This post features highlights from the 145th talk in the series of CPR-CSH Urban Workshops, where Paroj Banerjee, Ratoola Kundu, and Maggie Paul talk about their ongoing research in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi on the struggles of the houseless communities during 2020 to 2021. The discussion and the study raises important policy and governance questions about houseless communities in the city, arguing that the predominant shelter-centric policy discourse fails to capture the agency, the lived realities, and fundamental contributions and specific vulnerabilities of those who have made a home in the city, but do not have a ‘house’ to live in.

    By on May 28, 2022

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  • “A potential death sentence”: Impact Assessment of Evictions during the Pandemic in Delhi

    The making of the city of Delhi is characterised by perennial eviction at the legal and spatial peripheries of its urban landscape. Disturbingly, this character of regular eviction was not disturbed even during the time of the COVID–19  pandemic, when the world was facing a state of exception.

    By and on May 18, 2022

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Data Tales

  • Housing Policy Timeline: Part 2

    The Housing Policy Timeline is an attempt to understand and analyse the key policy shifts within this period. The timeline deals with the evolution of public policies on housing in India, and the consecutive Five-Year Plan wise allocation of funds towards housing schemes and policy initiatives. Across the timeline, the various schemes and policies initiated and institutions set up help in understanding the role of economic and political ideologies and priorities.

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Featured Resource

  • Property Laws and Property Practices in India

    Land and property have been governed by the Indian state in rather conflicting ways in the past. While the first amendments to the Indian Constitution were purported to enable the State to redistribute land more equitably, this was followed by a land acquisition that displaced Adivasis, Dalits and other vulnerable groups for developmental projects. This paper by the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) examines these two sets of evidence available in the vast literature on property rights, acquisition and urban planning, to decrypt the stance of the Indian State vis-a-vis land and property within its territory.

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Technical Reports

Reports

  • Assessment of quality of construction at the Baprola RRAY resettlement colony: A Report
    In keeping with its mandate to improve the quality of life of residents of JJ clusters, DUSIB constructed an Economically Weaker Section (EWS) Housing Society in Baprola Phase 2, approximately 25km from central Delhi. However, in less than five years from completion and relocation of allottees, issues of seepage, cracks in walls, peeling of bricks, overflowing drains have been reported by residents, including to DUSIB. The emergence and wide prevalence of these issues in such a short duration necessitated the need for a comprehensive assessment of the design, construction quality, and grievance redressal mechanism in this context.
  • Evictions and due process in Delhi
    In the absence of an enforceable substantive right to housing, communities living in slums and other informal settlements have mobilized over the years, using both courts and political advocacy to try and protect themselves from eviction. This has resulted in a series of judgments, policies, and some legislation, relying on Constitutional provisions and India’s commitments under international law, extending at least some procedural safeguards (and limited substantive rights) to these communities. This brief documents these processes and provisions in the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
  • In Search of Home: A Study on Migrant Workers’ Access to Housing and Land
    This study aims to document the living conditions of migrant workers, particularly their access to housing and land in Delhi—where they lived—and in their villages as well as the challenges faced by them during the COVID-19 crisis. While the lockdown has been lifted in India, in phases from 1 June 2020, lessons learned from this period can be used to frame land and housing policies and to develop low-cost social housing models, not only for migrant workers, but also for all those living in homelessness and inadequate housing in urban and rural areas.