'Stop endless retrofitting': Ex-Delhi chief secy urges urban planning reset

Former Delhi Chief Secretary Shailaja Chandra urged CM Rekha Gupta to show courage, end vote-bank politics, and prioritise long-term urban planning over short-term populist measures

Former Delhi Chief Secretary Shailaja Chandra has written an open letter to Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, urging her to steer away from decades of what she termed “appeasement politics”, instead embrace bold, long-term urban planning. 

In the letter, published in The Indian Express on Thursday, Chandra, who also served as Secretary in the Union Health Ministry, described Delhi as “India’s most demanding urban assignment”. “At 81, I have no political ambition or desire for an advisory post — only a request for a response,” Chandra said.

 

A call for political will and vision

“You can interrupt the decay — or you can inherit its failed logic. Delhi deserves courage, not administrative tinkering,” Chandra wrote in the letter. She also suggested that Rekha Gupta has a unique opportunity to leave a lasting legacy — even one that could rival or surpass that of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit — especially with support from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. 

 

Highlighting the city’s dependence on migrant labour — from domestic helps to drivers and construction workers — Chandra warned that Delhi’s economy would collapse without them. Yet, she argued, these migrants often end up in a poorly planned and visionless cityscape.

 

Vote-bank politics trumps urban planning

She criticised successive governments for converting the migrant influx into a vote-bank strategy, which she said has led to policy compromises and disregard for planning and environmental standards. “Today, seven million people live in unauthorised colonies across Delhi, all of which violate environmental, safety and land-use norms,” Chandra wrote in the letter in The Indian Express. 

She cited examples of environmental hazards, including waste from households and unregulated industries being dumped into the Yamuna river. “Effluent from household industries running chromium plating and pickling businesses, which use carcinogenic substances as well as acids, is later discharged into stormwater drains,” she wrote.

 

End to ‘endless retrofitting’

Chandra linked the collapse of urban planning to a combination of ad hoc policymaking, judicial verdict reversals, and legislative measures that enabled large-scale encroachment of public and agricultural land. She called for an end to what she described as "endless retrofitting" of Delhi’s urban infrastructure. 

She urged Gupta to draw a line on further regularisation of illegal colonies and make a public declaration against any future legitimisation of encroachments. This, she said, would require using all enforcement tools and better coordination with the state’s administrative apparatus. 

To address the issue of continuous migration, Chandra recommended setting up temporary housing near employment hubs and designing service delivery systems based on actual needs rather than political expediency.