DELHI GOVERNMENT’S INACTION ON ESCALATING RENTS DOWN, DOWN! OUTSTATION STUDENTS’ STRUGGLE FOR RENT REGULATION & MORE HOSTELS LONG LIVE!! Dear Friends, We come to Delhi University (D.U.) to fulfill our dreams, but very soon realize that we must achieve our ambitions against many odds. Absence of adequate, government funded and well maintained hostel accommodation for all is one such huge obstacle. And this obstacle is very much a creation of Delhi University’s administration, since it has always chosen to use monetary funds to beautify its campuses rather than build more hostels. However, students are not the only ones to suffer in this regard. Every year, apart from a large number of students who come to study in universities of Delhi, a larger number of people migrate to the city in the desperate search for employment. This migrant population is forced to live in sub-human conditions in slums or, to crowd into small rented rooms, paying most of their earnings as rents. In other words, the majority of students’ and workers’ monetary subsistence (money received from home and wages, respectively) is appropriated by landlords in the city. It is an undeniable fact that tenants are openly exploited by a handful of landlords/builders who simply live on renting out the several houses/properties they own. While the state is not oblivious to the adverse conditions faced by tenants in the city, it takes no initiative to provide either more residential infrastructure like hostels for students, or to regulate rents charged by landlords. Recently, under the garb of the Commonwealth Games, landlords have hiked rents considerably. They had done so earlier too, when the Delhi Metro reached certain areas of the city. As expected, nothing was done then and nothing is being done now to control the fleecing of tenants. The preparation for the Games has, indeed, allowed the state to crack down on the most vulnerable sections of society. Construction workers, most of whom are migrants, are being overworked and underpaid at the various Commonwealth sites. The homeless, labourers, hawkers, and now students have had to pay the brunt for the massive construction work and subsequent redirecting of funds. Slums have been demolished and relocated overnight, street vendors have been denied their rights, and now students too have been recently evicted from their college hostels in the wake of the Commonwealth Games! Of course, majority of students have been staying in private accommodations long before the Commonwealth Games, simply because out of Delhi University’s 76 colleges, only 11 colleges provide undergraduate hostels! With an ever increasing number of students coming to D.U. such miniscule number of hostel seats fails to provide the majority of students the basic living space on college campuses. With a very large number of students forced to live in private accommodations there has been a burgeoning of authoritarian PGs with unregulated rents. These places do not even meet the minimum security standards, nor do they provide adequate facilities (for eg., many places do not provide meals!). Furthermore, students, particularly women, become vulnerable to sexual harassment by landlords/neighbours. In addition to problems of harassment, students are constantly burdened by rent hikes, commuting problems, the stress and expense of searching for a PG, losing security money to landlords, etc. The sheer lack of concern for students struggling outside in such places exposes not only the insensitivity of D.U.’s administration, but, also the apathy of the Delhi Government. Neither the officials of D.U. nor the Rent Controller of Delhi have ever tried to regulate rents of private accommodations. As if pushing the majority of students into such exploitative conditions was not enough, D.U. has taken the outrageous step of evicting students from its existing hostels. The decision to vacate the college hostels was undemocratically imposed upon the students by certain college officials. Ultimately then, the number of students having to live in hostile conditions has risen. Needless to say, these events are going to have long term repercussions for students even when the Commonwealth Games are over. The escalated rents are here to stay, as no PG is going to come down from a hiked rent of say Rs.8000 to Rs.5000, post the Games. Similarly, the hostellers will have to pay enhanced hostel fees, charged in the name of beautification and development. The question then is, are we going to take this lying down or will we unite to give our individual struggles a collective form. Friends, let us unite to fight against greedy landlords and an apathetic university authority and state. Ours will not be the first such struggle since rent laws have often led workers in the past to fight for rent regulation. Since such past struggles have forced authorities to regulate rents, we too can meet with such success. Join the ongoing campaign for rent regulation and more hostels. Be a part of SIGNING OF PETITIONS TO THE RENT CONTROLLER OF DELHI and the STRUGGLE TO MAKE COLLEGES PROVIDE MORE HOSTELS TO OUTSTATION STUDENTS. We CONDEMN the arbitrary decision to vacate college hostels, and DEMAND: Rent Regulation by the Rent Controller of Delhi. Increase in size and capacity of college hostels being renovated so as to accommodate more outstation students.
Rent regulation–the immediate solution, More hostels and housing for all is the ultimate resolution!
CSW
KYS
CENTRE FOR STRUGGLING WOMEN KRANTIKARI YUVA SANGATHAN Contact: 9350272637, 9313697646, 9560676366, 9312654851 Email: fightagainstrentsharks@gmail.com