Urban Land Management: a prototype of bad governance

A. Srivathsan, in an excellent article in The Hindu bemoans the utter mess that urban land planning in Delhi is. Delhi recently has witnessed a situation that is the result of bad urban land management:

§ the sealing of unauthorised commercial establishments of traders and
§ the eviction of slum dwellers from along the Yamuna river.

While politicians have cried hoarse over the sealing of commercial establishments (keeping in mind the coming by elections), nobody seems to be shedding tears for the slum dwellers. Srivathsan rightly points out, and this has been very well elaborated in CCS’s publication “Law, Liberty and Livelihood: Making A Living on the Street”, slum dwellers are more often than not, considered encroachers, rather than contributors to the city’s commerce.