Life a struggle, can’t SC rethink decision, ask residents of Delhi slums along railway lines

Sunil Kumar and his family -- wife and two children -- used to live in a south Delhi slum when their home was razed by a bulldozer during a demolition drive in December 2016. HT on Thursday visited other slums – in Azadpur, Vihar, Shakur Basti, Mayapuri and Anand Parbat -- that are all located alongside railway tracks and densely populated, with open drains and narrow alleys. Kumar, a 42-year-old construction worker, and his family moved to his elder brother Anil Kumar’s house in a slum along the railway tracks in west Delhi’s Naraina Vihar where they have lived since. The family faces the risk of being displaced again after the Supreme Court on Monday ordered the removal of 48,000 slum dwellings situated along railway tracks within three months. The Court said: “There is predominant presence of jhuggis in Delhi along with 140km route length of railway track in the region of NCT {national capital territory} of Delhi… Out of this, about 70km route length of track is affected by large jhuggi-jhopri clusters existing in close vicinity of the tracks.” These clusters aggregated to about 48,000 dwellings, according to the affidavit filed by the Delhi division of Northern Railways.