2 lakh displaced by Games still languish: Report

NEW DELHI: The day chief minister Sheila Dikshit completed 12 years of uninterrupted governance of Delhi, she also had to contend with a piece of news that was not really music to her ears. On Monday, a report on eviction of slum-dwellers and those residing on project sites during the Games revealed a tragic tale of how human rights were grossly violated. According to rough estimates, two lakh people were displaced in different Games-related projects and at least 18 people died during and in the aftermath of the forced eviction due to loss of livelihood and the means to survive.

“Till today, most of the slum dwellers rendered homeless and jobless in the process continue to live a miserable life mostly on the streets or in makeshift tents. The government has failed to provide rehabilitation ,” said Shivani Chaudhry, who heads the House and Land Rights Network ( HLRN) NGO, which conducted the survey covering 19 sites. She said that the government 'forcibly' evicted families because of the Commonwealth Games, “for reasons ranging from construction of infrastructure to security and city beautification” . Among the sites mentioned are the ones in east Delhi opposite the Commonwealth Games Village and opposite the Thyagaraja Stadium in south Delhi.

Chaudhry said that the huge parking space and elevated road created on the Barapullah drain, in which more than 315 homes were demolished , remains underutilized. “The stadia and many other infrastructure projects created during the Games are not being used. This reality questions the very purpose of, and need for, the evictions,” she added. NGO members claimed the Games were used as an excuse to demolish informal settlements across the city, as part of the Delhi Government’s broader agenda of creating a ‘worldclass’ and ‘slum-free’ city with no space or provision for adequate housing for the urban poor.

Former Delhi High Court chief justice A P Shah, who released the report titled ‘Planned Dispossession: Forced Evictions and the 2010 Commonwealth Games’ , said there has been “failure of the political and legal system” to investigate, try and prosecute officials who had violated human rights.

Sajjid, whose home at the Cement Godam Basti was demolished while he was in his village in Bihar for the festive season said that he had lost all his possessions including 33 litres of cooking oil, a cooking stove, a bed and also the cart on which he sold vegetables to earn a living. “I sent my family back to the village after the demolition. Soon, I will have to move away as there is no place to live,” he said. Shanti, a 62-year-old woman who used to sell paan-bidi on the footpath in Lodi colony, said that even after the Games, the authorities did not allow her to start work. “I have 11 grandchildren , born to two deceased sons, and due to lack of money, they are starving. We have no place to live either,” Shanti added.