Critically evaluate the effectiveness of DUSIB's mandate in addressing the rehabilitation of Jhuggi Jhopri Clusters in Delhi.

Constituted under the DUSIB Act, 2010, the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board is the nodal body for notifying slums, surveying Jhuggi Jhopri Clusters (JJCs) and rehabilitating their residents [3]. Its mandate is statutorily robust, but delivery on the ground remains partial and uneven.

Where the mandate has delivered

• Statutory clarity: the Act empowers DUSIB to notify dilapidated areas as slums and manage JJ bastis, giving Delhi a single designated shelter authority [3].
• Policy framework: the Delhi Slum & JJ Rehabilitation and Relocation Policy, 2015 (implemented as Mukhya Mantri Awas Yojana) prioritises in-situ redevelopment, with relocation only to the nearest feasible site [2].
• Survey-based targeting: eligibility assessment for pucca flats has been taken up across 376 JJ clusters [2].
• Resource mobilisation: RFPs floated for in-situ rehabilitation of roughly 10,300 households in 10 JJC sites on a PPP model, with more under process [2].
• Interim shelter: a network of permanent shelter homes for the homeless [3].

Where it falls short

• Slow execution: the Union Housing Ministry had to formally direct DUSIB to complete its pending demand survey of eligible JJC dwellers — delaying the very first step of rehabilitation [1].
• Eligibility cut-offs exclude large numbers of later settlers, leaving clusters in permanent legal limbo.
• Fragmented land ownership: much JJC land vests with DDA, MCD, NDMC or Railways, so DUSIB's mandate outruns its control over land.
• Optics over outcomes: Coolie Camp, Vasant Vihar (281 households per DUSIB's 2012 data), was screened behind tall sheets before the 2026 BRICS Summit, as it was during the 2023 G-20 — concealment substituting for rehabilitation [4].
• Livelihood disruption: residents, including sanitation workers essential to the city, face restricted access and distant relocation [4].

DUSIB's framework is sound in design but hobbled by survey delays, jurisdictional fragmentation and a governance instinct that favours visual management over habitat upgradation. Completing time-bound surveys, empowering DUSIB with land-pooling authority and scaling in-situ redevelopment would convert a paper mandate into dignified housing, giving substance to the right to shelter under Article 21.