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Housing shortage in a mega city: a spatio-temporal analysis of NCT-Delhi, 2001–2011

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Abstract

Access to safe housing is considered an essential service as per the United Nation’s sustainable development goals. India is currently home to 2.4 billion houses of which 1.6 billion is rural. During 2001–2011, more than half a billion homes were added, and yet there exists acute shortage of quality housing with good public amenities. A report on urban housing shortage prepared by the Technical Group (TG-12) appointed by the Government of India estimated that the total number of households without “decent” housing condition in Indian cities counts to 18.78 million. Lack of sufficient number of houses adds to congestion and shortage. Misappropriation of funds further aggravates housing dilapidation, making the existing homes non-serviceable. Using the framework of TG-12, this study conducts an inter-district analysis of the obsolescence factor, congestion factor and homeless households across the megacity of Delhi for the years 2001 and 2011. Using district as the scale of analysis, housing shortage is measured by the Composite Index, computed for all nine districts for 2001 and 2011. We find that the composite index values are unequally distributed across the megacity’s districts. During 2001–2011, the overall shortage of housing had increased in NCT-Delhi, with the highest housing shortage felt in North, Central and New Delhi districts. Out of all nine districts, six showed increase in housing shortage. Also, the percentage of homeless households increased across all nine districts whereas the percentage of rental accommodations increased in seven out of nine districts.

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Fig. 1 

Source: Prepared by authors based on Census of India, 2001 and 2011

Fig. 2

Source: Prepared by authors based on Census of India, 2001 and 2011

Fig. 3

Source: Prepared by authors based on Census of India, 2001 and 2011

Fig. 4

Source: Prepared by authors based on Census of India, 2001 and 2011

Fig. 5

Source: Calculated by authors and prepared based on Census of India, 2001 and 2011

Fig. 6

Source: Calculated by authors and prepared based on data from Census of India, 2001 and 2011

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Notes

  1. Housing shortage is the difference between the number of existing households and existing housing stock.

  2. The obsolescence factor reflects the household units which are in poor or bad condition (GOI, 2012).

  3. A culture predominant in post-Fordist era where merit takes a back seat and merit is largely bought by money.

  4. Due to the unprecedented delay in the Census 2021 count in India, we are unable to conduct this analysis for the 2021 Census, which would have been ideal to measure two decades of housing shortage in India and in NCT-Delhi. However, within the contextual framing of housing shortage as suggested by Amitabh Kundu, we hope to highlight the intra-urban shortage in NCT’s districts such that adequate attention can be drawn toward those specific regions.

  5. Home pipes are huge pipes lying near the construction sites. When these lay there for long time,  often the homeless use it as their shelter, since these are strong pipes made from concrete and other material that provide safety against rain, cold, etc.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, 110 003, India

    Rajesh Kumar Abhay

  2. Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, 416 Burchfiel Geography Building, 1000 Phillip Fulmer Way, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Madhuri Sharma

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  1. Rajesh Kumar Abhay
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Abhay, R.K., Sharma, M. Housing shortage in a mega city: a spatio-temporal analysis of NCT-Delhi, 2001–2011. GeoJournal 88, 261–278 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10597-5

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