The journey of modern-day Delhi started in 1911 when the British made it their capital. Before that, Delhi had been a capital for others for over a thousand years. The fast-paced growth of the city began in 1911, when it had a population of three lakh. There was a huge jump in the population in 1947 due to migration of Punjabis, post Partition. It touched 16 lakh. The population of Delhi has continued to grow and touched 1.70 crore in 2011. When we came to Delhi after Partition in 1947, Meherchand Khanna was the chief head of the city. At that time, refugee colonies like Rajender Nagar, Lajpat Nagar were built to house the existing population. Till 1947, Delhi was concentrated in the walled city, three-four clusters and rural Delhi. But then Punjabis started dominating the trade, commerce and education scenario in the capital.
In those times, Delhi barely had any colleges and Lahore had 50. Majority of people from Delhi used to go to Lahore for studies. There was no college to study medicine in Delhi. In 1947, Punjab University opened Camp College as an evening college in Delhi. The number of students studying in the evening college exceeded the number of students studying in other colleges in the capital. I got my Bachelor of Arts degree from Camp College and Master of Arts degree from Hansraj College. I joined Camp College as a lecturer at 24. My students were people aged 45-50. Camp College was later dissolved and DAV and Dyal Singh Colleges came up. Though I had differences with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, I must say that he did a good job getting the master plan of Delhi made in 1962. He then formed Delhi Development Authority (DDA) under Clause 4 of the notification. The DDA acquired land for 4 annas per yard. Later it was increased to 50 paise per yard. Since DDA became the sole landowner in the capital, no private builders were constructing flats in Delhi.
In 1960, I was elected as member of the Metropolitan Council. In 1967, I became CEO of the Council which is equivalent to chief minister. I was then nominated as member of the DDA. It was then we took a decision that DDA will build houses and develop industrial areas in Delhi. I inaugurated Janakpuri, which was then the biggest colony in Asia that DDA built. Later, cooperative societies came up in Dwarka and Loni. As the CEO of the Council, I opened 18 new colleges in five years.
In those times, my father got a house allotted—200 sq yards for Rs 6,000 in Nizamuddin. It had no water supply and no sewage. Today, it is worth Rs 8 crore. One can see that the prices have gone up phenomenally. The prices of houses went up because the DDA did not build houses even after having land and a master plan and private construction companies could not build on DDA land which gave rise to huge amount of illegal construction.
VK Malhotra is Leader of Opposition , Delhi
(As told to Tarun Nangia)