In 5 decades, DDA flats match people Delhi adds in year

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Development Authority built 4.13 lakh homes in the last 48 years, a little more than the number of people added to Delhi’s population each year, suggesting that its pace of work is not adequate to meet the capital’s housing needs.

According to a reply to a Right to Information request from HT, the DDA – which has the responsibility for real estate in the capital — said it constructed 4,13,883 flats in 38 housing schemes, building an average of 8,622 homes every year since 1969.

In contrast, Delhi’s population has increased by 1.56 crore with an average annual rate of 3.26 lakh people in the same period.

The figures underscore a problem of real estate development in the national capital where hundreds of thousands live in slums and millions more are moving into an ever-expanding periphery that is the National Capital Region.

The DDA took one year to provide this data under the RTI Act, which requires government authorities to provide information in 30 days. An analysis from the reply shows that DDA’s initial three schemes — General Housing Scheme (1969-70), Self Financial Scheme I,II,III,IV (1978) and New Pattern Registration Scheme (1979) offered 2,30,000 flats to homebuyers.

The rest of the 35 schemes produced a dismal 1,18,000 flats in the past 38 years.

Sanjiv Kumar, the president of Delhi Residents’ Front, a federation of RWAs and apartment owners’ association in Delhi, said, “I remember I had paid ~1,500 booking amount in New Pattern Registration Scheme in 1979, the possession of which, DDA offered in 1994.”

CONTINUED ON P 6 NEWDELHI: Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has revealed that he did not favour demonetisation as he felt the “short-term economic costs” associated with such a measure would outweigh any possible long-term benefits.

Rajan makes the disclosure in a new book titled ‘I do what I do’, a compilation of his speeches as the RBI governor. Introductions and postscripts to the speeches, written after he demitted office last September, offer valuable insights into major policy developments during his term.

“At no point during my term was the RBI asked to make a decision on demonetisation,” Rajan has said, putting to rest speculation that preparations to scrap ~1,000 and ~500 notes got underway many months before PM Modi made the surprise announcement on November 8.

Rajan, who now teaches at University of Chicago, said he chose not to speak earlier so as not to “intrude on his successor’s initial engagement with the public”.

CONTINUED ON P 6 Exclusive extracts from Rajan’s new book ‘I do what I do’ ››P13