Swagata Das Human Settlements – Assignment [Savda Ghevra] – Fall 2017 SAVDA GHEVRA SETTLEMENT COLONY . South East Asian Region India New Delhi Community bonds revived in the neighborhood of Savda Ghevra within a decade. Source: www.architectureindevelopment.org Short description Savda Ghevra is a resettlement colony 25 km west of the Delhi, India which was created in 2005 to house residents in the process of demolition of the inner city for the Commonwealth Games of 2010. The forced relocation severed the community networks and of course, employment opportunities. In addition to that, the new site was hardly an improvement to the better living conditions of the residents and maintained characteristics akin to their previous illegal settlement with no certainty of safety from future evictions. Today, the residents travel around 90 minutes (one way) to their place of work making social exclusion and unemployment a big issue in such situations. Dilapidated houses, poorly maintained streets, water logging breeding pests, mosquitoes and insects and increasing diseases are usually how the area is known as. The government must learn from its past mistakes and avoid the creation of disasters of ‘resettlement’ in sites like Savda Ghevra where the right of residents to live with dignity is violated on a daily basis (Chaudhry 2014). In such a case of government’s inadequacies to deal with the issue, the initiatives of NGOs and individual actors are emerging, in particular to an Indian NGO (CURE) which engages in providing sanitation systems designed according to the clusters and allows residents to incrementally grow their house with 0% loan. Site The site of Savda Ghevra was developed by DUSIB- Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board [ 1 ] as part of the recent wave of evictions from the inner city to make the capital “slum free”. Though no [ 1 ] Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board is under the government of Delhi under DUSIB Act, 2010. It has power to declare areas with derelict buildings and no services under Slums. Further, it has the responsibility to provide amenities to squatter and resettlement areas. BASIC PROJECT DATA: Initiator: CURE Architect: Julia King Other partners/ actors involved: London Metropolitan University, Delhi Jal Board, Delhi Government etc. Name: Savda Ghevra Resettlement Colony Place: New Delhi, India Date: 2006-present Number of residents/ users catered for: 20,000 families
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Swagata Das Human Settlements – Assignment [Savda Ghevra] – Fall 2017
SAVDA GHEVRA SETTLEMENT COLONY .
South East Asian Region India New Delhi
Community bonds revived in the neighborhood of Savda Ghevra within a decade. Source: www.architectureindevelopment.org
Short description Savda Ghevra is a resettlement colony 25 km west of the Delhi, India which was created in 2005 to house residents in the process of demolition of the inner city for the Commonwealth Games of 2010. The forced relocation severed the community networks and of course, employment opportunities. In addition to that, the new site was hardly an improvement to the better living conditions of the residents and maintained characteristics akin to their previous illegal settlement with no certainty of safety from future evictions. Today, the residents travel around 90 minutes (one way) to their place of work making social exclusion and unemployment a big issue in such situations. Dilapidated houses, poorly maintained streets, water logging breeding pests, mosquitoes and insects and increasing diseases are usually how the area is known as. The government must learn from its past mistakes and avoid the creation of disasters of ‘resettlement’ in sites like Savda Ghevra where the right of residents to live with dignity is violated on a daily basis (Chaudhry 2014). In such a case of government’s inadequacies to deal with the issue, the initiatives of NGOs and individual actors are emerging, in particular to an Indian NGO (CURE) which engages in providing sanitation systems designed according to the clusters and allows residents to incrementally grow their house with 0% loan. Site The site of Savda Ghevra was developed by DUSIB- Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board [1] as part of the recent wave of evictions from the inner city to make the capital “slum free”. Though no
[1] Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board is under the government of Delhi under DUSIB Act, 2010. It has power to declare areas with derelict buildings and no services under Slums. Further, it has the responsibility to provide amenities to squatter and resettlement areas.
BASIC PROJECT DATA: Initiator: CURE Architect: Julia King Other partners/ actors involved: London Metropolitan University, Delhi Jal Board, Delhi Government etc. Name: Savda Ghevra Resettlement Colony Place: New Delhi, India Date: 2006-present
Number of residents/ users catered for: 20,000 families
official record exists of the population, the estimate is that the site of 250 acres is supposed to house around 20,000 families (Khosla, 2013). The resettlement commenced in 2006 when the government of Delhi initiated the ‘Sites and Services’ programme to administer better living conditions to the EWS-economically Weaker Sections. The administration deemed it suitable to relocate the families into this site of desert like environ, of previous barren rural landscape of mustard fields, without any existing infrastructure or housing, not even the minimum facilities of electricity, water/sanitation or even roads. The site is bounded by a railway line on the south running till Firozpur. Further south is NH 10 connecting to Rohtak. Historical background Jhuggi Jhopri (JJ) is a category designated by the government to unplanned settlements, with policies targeting to remove them from the inner city of Delhi and allot the population plots in ‘Jhuggi Jhopri (JJ) Resettlement Colonies’. Since independence, the country has seen several waves of relocations, primary amongst them are the ones in 1960s, 1970s and most recent in 2000s. The DUSIB reports that between 1961 and 1977, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) established 44 resettlement colonies under the retrospectively named ‘Old Plan Scheme of JJ Resettlement’ (Sheikh, Banda and Mandelkern, 2014).The recent one was on the eve of hosting the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. The relocation was reasoned to make space for the infrastructure and other projects necessary to organize the event. As such, residents were relocated from the inner city to eleven sites on the periphery where they are assigned plots randomly. Researchers estimate that from 1997 to 2007, close to a million basti residents have been displaced (Ghertner 2010). Scholars and activists have demonstrated that relocation of informal settlement dwellers leads to the loss of social and financial capital: residents are randomly assigned to resettlement colonies thus splintering communities and studies have found that following relocation, families need at least 2–3 years to recover from the financial shock (Khosla, 2007). The entire concept of rehabilitating was in the name of providing basic services that were lacking in Jhuggi Jhopri. However, reality provides a grim picture of these ‘planned’ settlements .The ‘Jhuggi Jhopri (JJ) Resettlement Colonies’ reflected similar conditions of disorganization as the previous slums they were supposed to replace. Hence, in many cases as in Savda Ghevra, initiatives by residents with the help of NGOs to cater to their basic needs have started to create a better living condition and set an example for future sites. Prime amongst them is the NGO- CURE (Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence) which has been assigned by the government to create a better living environment for the residents of Savda Ghevra.
Jhuggi Jhopri in the state of New Delhi. Source: http://mitdisplacement.org/
Eviction in process Source: www.indianslumresearch.com
Residents evicted to the ‘planned’ settlement. Source: www.indianslumresearch.com
Architect CURE is a NGO which works with communities providing a link to the government at different levels and access to the basic services. CURE organises and empowers low-income communities, especially women and young people in urban areas, to access water supply, sanitation, power, livelihoods, education, health care and (Patwari et al., 2008). Renu Khosla, the Director of CURE explains the core philosophy of the association as empowerment leading to a change. Based on this vision, the NGO has carried out impressive work in a number of projects across the country. CURE’s organisational endeavour is to create a single window; a transparent and accountable mechanism for effective service provision in poor settlements and build compact between organizations of people and local agencies for monitoring service efficiency (Patwari et al., 2008). Amongst the various initiatives of the organisation, prime are methods to improve the socio- economic conditions to sustain the population as well as improving sanitation as it poses a serious threat to the health of the community. With simple programmes like a waste collection and composting system, community septic tanks, small business for women etc. CURE is improving the circumstances of the communities, one step at a time. Working closely with CURE is a British Architect and urban researcher, Julia Kings. Doing her PHD at London Metropolitan University, her work focusses on inclusive housing and sanitation development with various projects that entails rethinking basic amenities for communities like toilets and waste management infrastructure. Description Community empowerment The moment CURE was brought in to help the relocated people of Savda Ghevra was an eye opening one. Workers described the small house on even smaller plots of 12 to 18 square meters with openings on only one face. Poor financial conditions of the residents ensured cheap construction. Access to safe drinking water and toilet facilities were questionable. In such a condition where the right to a decent life was defied for the residents, CURE realized that it was important to understand with the socio- economic condition in addition to providing the basic services to the residents as a starting point for the interventions.
CURE designing with residents Source: www.cureindia.org
Julia King with a neighborhood worker. Source: http://www.bbc.com
An 18 sq mt vacant plot. Source: www.londonmet.ac.uk
CURE workers discussing with the community. Source:www.cureindia.org
Generating Income within Savda Ghevra Of the people of working age in Savda Ghevra, only 48% are employed and more than a third of these only get work on a daily basis (Khosla, 2013).Almost all the working people commuted on a daily basis to the place they were evicted from as most of them worked in the vicinity of their previous dwelling. As an initiative, CURE formulated an organized analysis of the livelihood of the residents to explore the possible working of the residents around 10 kilometres from their home. A training program to that effect was implemented which has led to 112 people being certified by the Construction Industry Development Council as electricians (60), masons (35), welders (7), carpenters (6) and painters (2) (Khosla, 2013).Statistics show that a part of the residents earning almost twice as much as they used to earlier. In addition to that, the invisible role of women in generating income was highlighted. Most of the women were skilled in sewing and they were involved with a designer who helped them make environment friendly bags. With the recent ban of plastic bags in Delhi, the community was able to take advantage of this opportunity to start a new business with successfully marketing, producing as well as distributing their own products. This provided an array of new job opportunities to engage the residents in their home quadrupling their monthly wages. Incremental Housing Typology CURE foundation was approached by Aga Khan Foundation to handle the relocation of squatters in the vicinity of a protected monument. The organization took this opportunity to work with the families of the evicted and work on a prototype that they could utilize in Savda Ghevra. To that effect, they engaged architectural students to design a bottom up approach to tackle the housing issue. Currently the predominant houses were of three typologies; Kucha houses, semi pucca houses and pucca houses. Most of the existing typologies are kuccha houses which does not provide occupants with possible opportunities for livelihood as well as space of for renting to low income. Working with the Indian NGO (CURE) allows the project of community-based cluster sanitation systems to incorporate financing which enables families to invest in their houses with 0% loan schemes organized through CURE, promoting incremental growth (King, 2012). The idea was to not provide planned houses to the residents but cater to development of incremental housing giving residents the opportunity to control the whole process. The approach was seen influenced by Corbusier’s Maison Dom-ino to develop a building system which provided the structural system to be filled in by the occupants. In this context the process was started to provide structurally safe
A resident engaged in livelihood initiative Source:www.indianslumresearch.com
Kuccha house
Core upgrade
In-fill
pucca house
and economically viable housing to the residents of Savda Ghevra. The constructed was funded by a market especially designed for loaning for the construction of affordable housing. A revolving fund for housing was established by CURE enabling loan and credits for housing. These initiatives were linked to the already existing informal system of loan groups. Though prevalent mostly amongst the women folk who manged it outside formal banking sectors or the state, CURE supported these initiatives to empower them and make them part of the system rather than the usual practice to ignore and later obliterate them as illegal. An initiative for clean drinking water and sanitation Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is assigned to provide water through pipe network to the city of Delhi. However, since it does not extend to the colonies resettled after the year 2000, Savda Ghevra does not fall within its service. As a result, the residents have to purchase water from the water ATMs equipped by private companies or wait in line for the tankers provided by DJB. CURE came up with an innovative approach to that issue of water distribution. Started in March of 2013, the associated installed ‘water kiosks’ – a two storey building run by solar power which houses a water tank with a machine to treat ground water on the site. The residents were provided with this facility at the rate of 10 rupees (around 14 cent) for a can of 20 litres of water. In regards to sewage connection, DJB delivers one to any resident who applies for the same. However, what it fails to mention is the fact that the connection is approved if the area already has an existing trunk sewage system. Since Savda Ghevra does not have a sewerage system and it is not even a part of the Delhi masterplan, it is safe to assume that formal connections will not reach the colony in the near future. In such a circumstance, residents have to use a single community toilet complex (CTC) located in each block. However, with many of them being locked since the starting of the project till date, residents find it far more preferable to defecate in the open farms rather than waiting in long queues for their turn. CURE employed a decentralized system of community septic tanks (CST) for residents to access in spite of the absence of the trunk network. The input of visiting British architect Julia Kings is significant here along with the community to initiate the ambition of a toilet in each household. By 2013 this pilot project was funded by the Mahila Sewa Trust in a part of Block A, owing to its central location at the junction of the commercial route. CURE acquired approval to build a sewage treatment plant in an open space demarcated as
A scheme for incremental housing Source: www.wordpress.com
The fight for clean water Source: www.indianslumresearch.com
A woman at the water ATM Source: http://www.bbc.com/
The decentralized sanitation system on
site. Source: http://www.bbc.com
A park and a system of pipes laid underground connected to the plant to gather the sewage from individual households. Residents paid a monthly 30 rupees to connect to the central system. A model for the future Analysis after the implementation the project reveals general satisfaction of the residents and a desire by the authorities to replicate the model of Savda Ghevra is other parts of the capital. CURE is implementing initiatives that provide residents a means for additional income, vibrant streetscape for social activities and right to clean water and public health. Though the above are just a part of the initiatives at the site, it is heartening to see a vibrant community emerging from this system involving different organizations engaging to make a difference in the place in the process of bettering living conditions and livelihoods in these neighbourhoods; providing opportunities to earn a better life rather than receiving charity.
Critical evaluation The right to a decent shelter is recognised worldwide as a basic human right and contributes to form an essential part of an adequate standard of living. However, this right is a very expensive one for the urban poor. With rapidly urbanizing cities, it is proving to be truer with the prevailing demands of urban India.There is a powerful link between decent housing facility and its power to mitigate poverty by providing opportunities for improving health, sanitation and making productive communities. This can lead to better living environments which are vibrant and enriched with pride and identity. In a world where a person’s access to basic facilities of life like education, sewage and other amenities seems like a measure of his living standards, an investment into a pucca house adds a specific value to people’s assets allowing for leverage of wealth as credit collateral (Soto, 2000). In such a case, adequate housing facility has an even greater significance in the life of urban poor because it is also home to small enterprises generating income sources. Initiatives at Savda Ghevra recognises these needs of residents viewing the evolution of the house as an ongoing process rather than an outcome. The residents with the assistance of CURE, utilized their small plots effectively to build their home qualifying them as smart builders capable of creatively managing the design of their own homes ingraining a system of storage spaces, water pumps and other amenities to integrate it into a better structure and serve the residents to expand their humble homes. It emphasises a major understand on the part of designers to assist the residents to build their own homes rather than imposing a design they deem fit for the community. Projects like the ones in Savda Ghevra brings to light the fact that to create functional cities as a positive environment for all kinds of citizens, there is a need to move away from the existing approach of simplifying it into a single module that fits all. A city is made up of diverse groups each with their own needs and demands. And as long as the government cannot set aside its assumptions and treat them as mere faceless statistics to be designed for, it will continue creating communities like Savda Ghevra. Hence instead of evicting citizens to another place where they lie in wait to face similar issues as their previous site, what the city need is to empower its citizens to make their own choices regarding their homes and engage with the stakeholders to make affordable housing accessible to the urban poor.
Social activities on site Source: www.wordpress.com
It is essential that government agencies and designers realise the dynamic relationship that exist between citizens and the environment they create for themselves. The independent variability of motivating priorities explains the counter-productivity of prescriptive housing production systems (Turner, 1976). Even after years, the implication of these words are still felt. It is almost incredible to observe the impacts when residents are allowed to participate in the making of their own environment. It takes care of the burden of the state to invest allowing them greater role in the city building process and focussing on tools fo greater access to land and other services or resources. More importanly in projects like Savda Ghevra, the people feel part of Delhi’s narrative. Such projects can be seen as a means of conciliation between the vision of creating a ‘world class Delhi’ and the disturbing reality of marginalized in the fringe, both part of the same world. Lastly it must be mentioned that initiatives like that at Savda Ghevra are not quick solution to the past blunders. However it certainly is a good beginning.
Neighborhood of Savda Ghevra developing incrementally within a time span of 2 years.
Source: www.wordpress.com
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