Forced evictions in India in 2018: an unabating national crisis

More than 2 lakh people were forcibly evicted and over 40,000 houses demolished across India last year, according to a report released by the Housing and Land Rights Network. The estimates show that over 114 houses are being demolished every day and 23 people are being evicted every hour in the country by the Centre and state governments, the advocacy group’s report said. This comes at a time when the ruling BJP has highlighted ‘housing for all’ in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections. The report documents cases from 19 states and two Union Territories, and the actual numbers are likely to be higher than the report’s estimates, the HLRN said. While slum-clearance, anti-encroachment and city beautification drives displaced 47 per cent of the people affected, infrastructure and ‘development’ projects, including the construction of roads and highways, housing and ‘smart-city’ projects, led to the eviction of 26 per cent of the people displaced.