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Towards A Slum-Free City?

Delhi and the Unfinished Story of Kathputli Colony

Véronique Dupont and M. M. Shankare Gowda

₹ 1115

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Imprint	Orient BlackSwan
Year of Publishing	2026
Number of pages	380
ISBN	9789369731695
Format	Paperback
Language	English
Dimensions	140 x 216 mm
Catalogue(s)	Development Studies, General Interest , Policy Studies, Sociology, Urban Studies

the Book
the Author(s)
Table of Contents

The Book

The challenge to achieve inclusive cities and sustainable habitat for all raises urgent questions about the place of slums in megacities of the Global South. Towards a Slum-free City? explores this through a detailed study of the treatment meted out to slums and their inhabitants in Delhi. Questioning Delhi’s path towards an (illusive) slum-free city, the authors ask: Do implemented slum policies alleviate the shortage of decent housing for the urban poor, and/or to what extent do they also aggravate their situation?

In Delhi, the Kathputli Colony slum redevelopment project has been emblematic as a pioneer in situ rehabilitation project under public-private partnership. Its importance lies also in the sheer size of the affected population: close to 20,000 people were displaced between 2014 and 2017, most of whom were temporarily resettled in a transit camp, where they still await their final rehabilitation.

The book examines urban policies, key socio-political episodes and economic reforms, the role of government actors and private developers in the shaping of urban strategies, and the intervention of the courts of justice in urban governance. Through rich ethnographic insights, it highlights the vulnerability of displaced communities, the creation of ‘illegal’ residents, and equally, their struggle to voice their concerns and negotiate their rights.

The Author(s)

Véronique Dupont is an emeritus Senior Research Fellow (Directrice de Recherche) at the French national Institute of Research for Sustainable Development (IRD), in the CESSMA research unit (Centre for Social Sciences Studies on Africa, America and Asia).

M. M. Shankare Gowda is an independent social science researcher, associated with the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), New Delhi.

List of Boxes, Tables, Maps, and Images
List of Abbreviations
Glossary of Hindi Terms
Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Dream of a Global City

1. Finding a Place in the City
Kathputli Colony, a Jhuggi-jhopri Basti among Many Others

1.1 From a Folk Artists’ Camp to a Large Heterogenous Settlement
1.2 Slum Settlements in Delhi: Categorisation, Genesis, and Expansion

2. The Treatment of Slums in Delhi
From the 1956 Slum Areas Act to the Turn of the New Millennium

2.1 Ad hoc Public Interventions and Adverse Effects: Treating Merely the Symptoms of Housing Poverty
2.2 Past Attempts to Resettle or Rehabilitate Kathputli Colony

3. The Real-estate Turn in Delhi since the 2000s

3.1 A New Role for Private Developers in the Treatment of Slums
3.2 Kathputli Colony Redevelopment Project Act I (2008–13): In Search of Information

4. Evolving Power Equations among State Actors, Shifting Positions in Kathputli Colony

4.1 Power Equations within the Three-tier Government Structure of Delhi
4.2 Kathputli Colony Redevelopment Project Act II [February 2014–October 2017]: Resistance and Negotiation

5. End of a ‘Durable Slum’ and Creation of Illegal Urban Citizens
Act III: Kathputli Colony Redevelopment Project

5.1 Differentiated Resettlement and Exclusion
5.2 Legal Battles and Extra-legal Practices

6. Towards the Creation of a ‘Planned Slum’?
Act IV: Durable Temporariness on the Kathputli Colony Resettlement Sites

6.1 The Transit Camp, Narela, and Multiple Impacts of Resettlement
6.2 Impact of COVID-19 Induced Crises and Residents’ Responses

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index