India demolished 43,000 homes since March 2020, evicting more than 250,000 people, while nearly 16 million people are at risk of being displaced, according to housing rights campaigners.
More than 250,000
people were evicted across India during the coronavirus
pandemic, and millions more are at risk of being uprooted as
authorities eye projects for faster economic growth, housing
rights campaigners have warned.
From March 2020 to July 2021, authorities demolished more than 43,000 homes and evicted about 21 people every hour, the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), an advocacy group in Delhi said on Thursday.
In nearly all cases, officials did not follow due process
including giving sufficient notice, and a majority of those
evicted did not receive compensation from the government, it
said on Thursday in an annual report.
“During this lethal pandemic – when people are struggling
greatly to survive – acts of eviction and demolition of housing
have contributed to a grave human rights and humanitarian
crisis,” said Shivani Chaudhry, HLRN’s executive director.
“At a time when people were ordered to stay at home,
authorities resorted to unlawful demolitions, probably taking
advantage of curfew-like conditions when movement of people and
access to remedy, including to courts, was limited,” she said.
No official data on evictions
There is no official data on evictions in India.
In Delhi, where thousands were uprooted in the past year,
authorities only demolished “illegal encroachments”, said Amrish
Kumar, a director of the land management unit at the Delhi
Development Authority, a federal government agency.
“They were on government land, which is meant for public
purposes,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Some of the informal settlements were eligible for
resettlement and rehabilitation, but not all – and they were
dealt with according to due process,” he added.
Millions homeless or in slums
The world over, homeless people and those living in slums
have borne the brunt of restrictions to contain the coronavirus
and are at heightened risk of infection because of their dire
living conditions, housing experts said.
Human rights experts at the United Nations in July appealed
to the Indian government to end evictions during the pandemic.
More than 4 million people in India are homeless, according
to official data, with about 75 million living in slums and
informal settlements in urban areas.
The Indian government’s Housing for All plan aims to create
20 million urban homes and 30 million rural homes by 2022. But
implementation has been slow, and activists say it does not
address the issue of homelessness.
Nearly 16 million people are at risk of being evicted and
displaced, according to HLRN, including about 2 million whose
claims to forest land have been rejected.
Last year alone, more than 170,000 people were removed from
their homes, it said, compared to about 107,000 people the
previous year.
Nearly half were uprooted for environmental projects, while
infrastructure and city beautification schemes made up most of
the remainder.
Many evictions were carried out on court orders, including
from India’s top court, even as several courts directed
authorities not to demolish homes during the pandemic.
No legal recourse for slum dwellers
More than 100 cases related to evictions or rehabilitation
are pending at the Delhi High Court, said Anupradha Singh at the
non-profit Human Rights Law Network, which represents slum
dwellers in several cases.
“Court orders make it easier to carry out evictions, and
slum dwellers often have no legal recourse,” she said.
“Court orders for eviction during the pandemic are
particularly grievous, as these people have already lost their
livelihoods, and to lose their homes on top of that is a failure
of the courts to recognise their right to housing,” she said.
Source: Reuters
India uprooted tens of thousands in ‘lethal pandemic’; 21 people per hour
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