"Unauthorised colonies" and the City of Delhi

Abstract

This research was undertaken, to understand the phenomenon of "unauthorised colonies" in relation to the city of Delhi, to which they belong. "Unauthorised Colonies" is the label given by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), to the hundreds of residential colonies that have evolved in Delhi over the past twenty years, without DDA's authorisation and in complete disregard to the city's masterplan regulations. The research has been to discover and understand the hidden issues and underlying meanings of the various incidents in time that have shaped the evolution of unauthorised colonies and the city of Delhi. There has been no attempt at the start of this research to prove any predetermined issues or hypotheses. This investigation therefore, may be thought of as raising various issues as the exploration follows the evolution of these colonies through time. In the end it has been attempted to "tie" all the issues together · to present a picture of these colonies that is more complete and has a greater depth than the simplistic image presented by DDA's definition. The effort has been to present unauthorised colonies as an integral part of the overall city, from the point of view of the colony dwellers , a nd the dominant interest groups in Delhi . To explain the city's functioning as a condition of interdependence that exists between the authorised portions of Delhi and t h e unauthorised colonies, at levels that are not just physical but also political, social and economic.