To boost development and urban planning, occupied public land must be freed from illegal squatters. This has to be done in a firm but humane manner
The BJP Government plans to push some important legislations, including the land Bill, in the upcoming Budget Session. In doing so, it should consider incorporating stringent encroachment laws into the Bill. This is an important issue that has not been addressed with seriousness by successive Governments. The Modi Government, with an aggressive agenda of growth and development, finds itself in a soup when several projects are derailed due to the non-availability of land as a result of illegal encroachments. These squatters are usually slum dwellers. Some of them have even built concrete structures with illegal electricity connections.
Illegal land encroachment activity has been taking place countrywide for decades by the land mafia which has a quid pro quo relationship with the people sitting in power corridors. The Congress has been using these illegal settlers successfully for vote-banks, and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi too has taken over the same role to remain in business. Therefore, the apathy of Governments run by these two parties on this issue is understandable and so is their absence of will to formulate stringent laws to check encroachment in the first place and then delegate responsibility to proper authorities for freeing of public land from illegal settlers, afterwards. Any demolition drive, therefore, triggers a chain reaction of protests from the public, human rights activists and political adversaries.
With the shrinking of farm land and erratic weather conditions that have resulted in failed crops, the number of poor people is increasing at an alarming rate. The Government has failed to provide a conducive environment for job-generating industrial development in rural areas. This is the primary reason for rapid urbanisation. In fact, many migrant settlers have rehabilitated themselves quite well with jobs and better standards of living. Therefore, they have proved to be role models, an attractive alternative, for a large number of the rural poor, looking for an opportunity to migrate to the developed metro cities.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has undertaken an initiative to gradually get free railway land and use it for big ticket development projects like the high-speed Gatimaan Express, construction of railway infrastructure, laying additional tracks and terminals, and decongesting areas near railway tracks. living close to railway tracks — within 15 meters from the outer most track — not only slows down the trains, but is also hazardous for the residents and raises national security concerns.
A demolition drive carried out recently, by the Railway Ministry with the help of Delhi Police in Shakur basti, in order to build a new railway station that will help decongest the main station, drew lot of flak from the public and political parties like Congress and the AAP. About 2,000 inhabitants were forced out of their home and had to sleep outside in the mid-December cold. Indian Railways maintains that it had worked by the rule book: It gave three notices, but demolition could not be carried out in the summer because of the unavailability of the police force. However, the December demolition was an unforgivable failure on the part of the administration.
There are many more serious issues like shanties on the Yamuna river bed and encroachments in and around monuments that are of national importance. These are causing great environmental hazards and ecological imbalance.
The only solution to this important problem is the creation of an independent department to deal with the issue. Administrative heads and dedicated police cells should be made accountable for their failure to stop new encroachments. They must also carry out demolition drives by the book, so that there is no blame-game afterwards.