INDEFINITE PROTEST AT RAJ NIWAS BY BAWANA SANGHARSH SAMITI
28 AUGUST 2012, TUESDAY at 11.30a.m.

For the last 8 years, people of Bawana have been continuously struggling for their right to shelter. We were evicted from various parts of the city and forced live in inhumane conditions in Bawana resettlement colony. Our livelihoods were snatched from us and we were left to survive in shacks inspite of several promises made to us. To ensure our legal entitlements, we organised many protests and hunger strikes at DDA offices and at Raj Niwas. We gave continuous representations to DDA officials, Hon. Lt. Governor, political representatives through meetings and letters. We organised indefinite protests at DDA subhash nagar and pitampura to ensure DDA officials work and implement orders of the Hon. Lt. Governor to allot plots in Bawana to us. We have had five meetings with the Hon. Lt. Governor and in each meeting DDA recognised its faulty implementation of the resettlement policy and ordered allotment of plots to all of us who have been rendered homeless by the DDA and government authorities. 
Inspite of these developments we have been subjected to harassment and denial of our fundamental rights. In these years we have been victims of fatal illnesses, hunger and unemployment but have followed our collective demand to attain our right to shelter and livelihood. After protesting day and night at Raj Niwas in February 2012 and facing police repression of our voices, the Hon. Lt. Governor decided to meet us on 7th March 2012. In that meeting, he passed orders to clarify the resettlement policy and ensured us that our plots will be allotted to us within 3 months. It is shameful that after making such promises to people who have been fighting for justice for the last 8 years, the DDA and its officials have still not fulfilled their duties and have continuously violated orders of the Hon. Lt. Governor regarding the Bawana Resettlement case. 
While the DDA refuses to correct its irregularities, recent R.T.I's have revealed that the DDA has not completed its responsibilities under the law, i.e. Delhi Master Plan, and has only built only 5.5 lakh houses out of 7.4 lakh houses during the first master plan, 5.56 lakh houses out of 16.2 lakh houses during the second master plan. The DDA was to construct 23 lakh houses till 2001 but has constructed only 11 lakh houses under the third master plan. These figures raise a few questions,

• If the number of houses made for urban poor is significantly lesser than the mandated houses to be made, where is the land allocated by the DDA for the same ??
• Why has no action been taken against the violation of the Master Plan ??
• Why does the DDA continue to make excuses of scarcity of land to deny urban poor their right to shelter when we know that land occupied by illegal parking lots in Delhi is double of the amount of land occupied by all slums and juggi-jhopdi clusters and there is no accountability of land use by the DDA ?

The DDA is clearly guilty of perpetuating inequality in our city and has also institutionalized inequality through its unlawful distribution and use of land and denial of housing to urban poor who have faced violent evictions in our city. The DDA must be held answerable for its irresponsibility and immediate action must be taken to ensure housing rights of poor.

Thus, the evictees from Bawana are organising a indefinite protest at Raj Niwas on 28th August 2012 11:30 am onwards to demand implementation of orders of the Hon Lt. Governor and legal action against DDA officials who have denied justice and violated orders of the Hon. Lt. Governor. 

Do join us and support us in voicing our demands for right to shelter and justice !

Umesh 
Bawana Sangharsh Samiti
7428945418