Thursday 8 October 2015

New DDA housing scheme to rehabilitate slum dwellers

DDA for the first time has launched the "In-Situ Slum Rehabilitation Scheme" to rehabilitate slum dwellers. This is a departure from the earlier re-settlement schemes wherein they were shifted and settled in far-off places of occupation and residence leading to unemployment.

Under the scheme, re-settlement will be done on the land occupied by jhuggi-jhonpri clusters with private partnership. The land will be sold through the tender process to a private partner for construction of multi-storey houses. The number of storey’s will depend on the availability of land.
DDA in the year 2004 ran schemes for rehabilitating such slum dwellers through re-development/ upgradation of the existing areas of Delhi like Narela, Dwarka etc. in order to make Delhi slum free and provide these people a house with hygienic conditions. Unfortunately such schemes did not take off because there were no jobs available nearby. These slum dwellers used to come back again and again as they had no choice of getting jobs around. DDA finally came out with in-situ slum rehabilitation policy under PPP mode and in 2008, tenders were invited from private developers. Eight developers qualified for the bid. The first tender was floated to rehabilitate Kathputli Colony which is one of Delhi's largest slum clusters and was won in a competitive open tender process by a Delhi based developer, Raheja developers Ltd.

Under this scheme, the 2800 families of Kathputli shall be given a new lease of life by providing them the latest modern apartments with high-end amenities like attached Bath, Toilets & Kitchens, Tiled flooring, Advanced Fire Detection & Fire Sprinter Systems. Seismic Zone 5 compliant RCC structure designed and certified by IIT/ other reputed structure MEP consultants.

This is apart from centralized amenities like large Green Parks, Schools for Children's Education, Religious Structures, Exhibition Spaces for local Arts & Crafts, open Air Theatres for Performance Storage Spaces for Artifacts, Police Station, Fire Station, Parking Facilities, Shops for daily conveniences. Each Apartment shall be over 30 sq. meters in size with a living/ dining area, bedroom area, kitchen, toilet, bath, large 4.5 sq. meter terrace area. MORE INFO HERE >>

Till the time these structures are built on site the Kathputli colony residents shall be rehabilitated in a Transit Camp facility at Anand Parbat barely, 1.8 kms away from the Kathputli Colony. This shall be only for 2-3 years by which time the buildings shall be ready. The Transit camp is also a ultra modern complex with all modern facilities. MORE INFO HERE >>

All this is being allotted to the Kathputli residents and the costs are borne by the private developer, who in lieu of this will get a small portion of site for a private development which he can sell in open market to recover the massive construction costs of 2800 apartments at Kathputli colony and another 2800 independent houses at Transit Camp.

It is due to the Delhi Government and DDA's commitment towards service to the society and Nation that such schemes are becoming possible and giving a fresh face to the city, moving towards a slum free Delhi.

The latest media updates, developments on this scheme can be found HERE >>