Indian cities are getting crowded and congested. In absence of formal affordable options to stay and do business in cities, poor migrants are encroaching on public land. Encroachment is a problem widespread in residential colonies, industrial and institutional areas, marketplaces, footpaths, public parks, water bodies, heritage and cultural sites, green belt areas, or say wherever people can find a usable piece of land for raising houses or doing businesses. People have even raised illegal structures alongside drains and railway tracks, under over bridges, on flood plains, wetlands, and near dumping sites. Cities need to get rid of the encroachments. The recent anti-encroachment drives in many cities of North India have drawn attention to this decades-old problem. However, there are several questions around the methods of handling the situation. The million-dollar question is how urban local bodies are going to get rid of encroachments and what is the right way
