Showing The Way

If you have tried to buy a flat anywhere in Delhi (or in virtually any other big town or city in India), and wanted to be a law-abiding citizen at the same time, the chances are that you would have found the dual task impossible to achieve. Most flats are built these days by private builders, and there isn't one of them that observes all the municipal building bye-laws. Most of them over-build, going well beyond the permissible limit, or violate land-use rules, or commit other infractions (selling basements as complete flats, for instance, when that is not allowed); and they have done so for years with complete impunity.

 

Next, it's been next to impossible to find a builder (or any other seller) who will take the entire payment by cheque. Most buyers of property play along quite willingly, because declaring a lower value for the property keeps down the annual property tax. And the officials in the various departments who are supposed to enforce the law are quite happy to play along too, because they are on the take. It has been an open conspiracy to defraud the government.

It's not just the rich who have played fast and loose. Those buying modest, poorly built flats from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) have gone on to encroach on common land, added rooms, enclosed open spaces, fought with neighbours while doing so, and yet persisted. So, what used to be prime residential "colonies" have been reduced to ugly, over-built concrete jungles where the residents fight over parking spaces, and break the law to put jet pumps directly on to already overdrawn water supply lines. Although residents' associations have begun to go court to try and stop the rot, it has seemed for years like a hopeless situation; many have simply fled the city to look for perches in exurbia.

For all those familiar with this situation, it's been an amazing sight to see how, in less than a month, the actions of one man have radically changed this scenario. Jagmohan was a bit of a disaster as communications minister, but as the man in charge of urban affairs, he has taken some simple steps to show that the impossible is in fact quite easy. By sending a few bull-dozers after the most obvious eye-sores in the city, he has sent the builder mafia into a state of panic. By going after those violating the rules in strictly middle-class DDA colonies, he has sent across the message that there is no safety in numbers.

The results are quite dramatic. Real estate prices and rental values, already into a tailspin for three years because of the recession, have crashed to previously unimaginable levels -- down to a quarter of what they used to be at the height of the boom, five years ago. When it comes to commercial space, there has already been a flight to quality because the new international companies coming into the country are looking for buildings that meet international standards, and most of the existing building stock fails the test. Also, the MNCs are not willing to look at buildings that are not in complete conformity with the building rules. So, suddenly, a building trade which has flourished by breaking every rule in the book finds that there is a premium on playing by the rules. For all those who have tried (and failed) to buy a flat built in a legit fashion, and to pay for it with legitmoney, it is a delicious twist of fate.

There is much speculation that, since the BJP was originally a "party of traders", the trader/builder lobby will eventually get the better of Jagmohan, and that his initiative to enforce building rules will come to nought. But if you are a betting man, and unable to bet any more on cricket, you could well put your money on the minister winning this round (unlike the last one, when he locked horns with the telecom companies and with the prime minister, and lost his portfolio). It's probably the last chance that New Delhi has to salvage its future, and stop its steady slide into being a smog-ridden, wheel-jammed, law-breaking urban nightmare.