DDA demolishes Bhoomiheen camp in South Delhi

The process to remove the residents from the DDA-owned land first began in June 2023 but was halted when those who had not been rehabilitated filed writ petitions in the high court.

At the crack of dawn on Wednesday, residents of Bhoomiheen camp in south Delhi’s Kalkaji watched as bulldozers tore through their houses, where multiple generations of their families had lived. Only a field of rubble and dust could be seen where a sea of houses stood a day ago.

Bulldozers at the Bhoomiheen Camp near Kalkaji on Wednesday. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

The settlement — which first came up in the 70s ( according to residents) — was demolished five days after the Delhi high court dismissed all petitions filed by some camp residents against the demolition barring one.

The process to remove the residents from the DDA-owned land first began in June 2023 but was halted when those who had not been rehabilitated filed writ petitions in the high court.

However, this time around, the deed is done.

“We do not know what we will do. We have nowhere to go now,” said 43-year-old Manoj Tiwari, as he stared at the bulldozers in action. Tiwari, who runs a snack shop in the area, said that his family has not yet been allotted a house in Kalkaji.

While DDA said that 1,862 households in the area were rehoused in Pocket A-14, Kalkaji extension in 2023, residents placed the total number of households at over 3,000.

A DDA official told HT, “Under in situ slum rehabilitation project at Kalkaji, after applying the eligibility criterion as per DUSIB’s rehabilitation/relocation policy 2015, approved by the then government of Delhi, some residents were found to be eligible for rehabilitaion, and some were not.”

According to policy, households included in voter lists from years 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 (prior to January 1), and possess any of the valid documents such as passport, electricity bill, driving licence, among others, are eligible for alternative accommodation. A person’s name should also appear in the voter list of the year of survey (2019), said the official.

On June 6, the HC directed DDA to provide alternative housing to one of the petitioners, which the body said it has already done, and to re-examine 26 of the cases and pass speaking orders within six weeks. “None of the petitioners has any legal right to continue occupying the JJ cluster incessantly, to the detriment of the public at large,” the court had said.

Prakash Goswami, 44, a small goods vehicle driver who claimed that he was in Bhoomiheen camp, alleged that he was denied housing despite having all the documents.

“The officials said that since I did not vote in 2019, I am not eligible for a house. I had gone to Bihar at the time because my mother had died,” he said.

Savita Tiwari, 36, who too was born in the camp, alleged that the 2019 survey wrongly mentioned that she did not possess a ration card. “But I have a ration card. I have showed it to officials. I have shown it in court. Why am I not eligible for a house then?”

Goswami, his wife and three children stood on Wednesday morning, along with the camp’s hundreds of residents, and watched bulldozers flatten the colony. “I don’t know where we will sleep tonight,” he said.

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