India, July 12 -- Over 1,800 unplanned settlements lack basic services,despite promises of regularisation.
New Delhi:In the heart of the national capital, over 1,800 unauthorized colonies remain trapped in legal and infrastructural limbo-neither fully regularized nor protected from a widening wave of demolition drives that have swept through Delhi in recent months. According to civic agency estimates, nearly 40 lakh people- about one-third of Delhi's population-live in these unplanned settlements, which were developed outside land-use regulations and urban planning norms.
These colonies gradually emerged over the decades to accommodate the city's growing migrant and low-income populations, who found formal housing unaffordable or inaccess...