NEW DELHI: Over 1 lakh people were evicted and over 22,000 houses demolished across the rural and urban areas in India last year, the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) said on Tuesday.
These, however, are only conservative estimates, it said in a report. During the pandemic, there were at least 45 evictions and at least 20,000 people were evicted in Delhi, Haryana, and Karnataka.
4.6 lakh people evicted in 2017-18 were not resettled and live in inadequate conditions, it said, adding that children, women, persons with disabilities, older persons, Dalits, and other marginalised groups have suffered disproportionately from the loss of their homes.
Between 2017 to 2019, over 2.6 lakh people were evicted due to slum clearance, encroachment removal, over 96,000 people for environmental projects, forest protection, 38,600 for disaster management, over 1.5 lakh for infra projects, 41,500 for highway, road construction and expansion, 46,400 for state housing projects, and over 22,000 for smart cities mission and projects.
“It is a cause of great concern that the planned dispossession and state-induced impoverishment of nearly 600,000 people over the last three years is not treated as a human rights emergency in India. There is no official data on evictions, no investigation, and no justice for affected persons,” said Shivani Chaudhry, executive director, HLRN.