New Delhi: Delhi govt is set to do a fresh survey of slums and jhuggi-jhopdi (JJ) clusters after 12 years to establish the number of such settlements and households and identify beneficiaries for its proposed in-situ rehabilitation programme, Jahan Jhuggi, Wahan Makan, that aims to provide better amenities.Urban development minister Ashish Sood said the survey is likely to begin in the next couple of weeks. “Govt will ascertain the number of people eligible for rehabilitation under the policy. Documents such as voter ID cards, ration cards and electricity bills will be required to establish that a person has been living in the slum before the cut-off date and is eligible for rehabilitation.”He said: “BJP govt has widened the rehabilitation criteria to ensure that even those who came to the slums after 2014 can get respectable housing. Eligible families will be provided flats under the in-situ development model, which means that they will be rehabilitated close to the location where they currently live.”The last comprehensive survey by Delhi govt in 2014 had identified nearly 700 JJ bastis and nearly 3.3 lakh households. Govt right now does not have any verified numbers on the number of slum clusters or the number of households in them .“The new exercise will map settlements, assess the number of households and verify beneficiaries before implementation of the Jahan Jhuggi, Wahan Makan policy,” an official said.Delhi assembly recently passed Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (Amendment) Bill, 2026, tabled by Sood, which sought to amend the DUSIB Act, 2010, by replacing the cut-off date of Jan 1, 2006, with Jan 1, 2025, for identifying a slum cluster as a JJ basti. Under the existing law, a cluster can be recognised as a JJ basti if it has at least 50 households and meets certain conditions, including having been in existence as of Jan 1, 2006.Currently, Delhi has 675 officially recognised JJ clusters, although officials estimate the actual number to be about 750. Several of these settlements sprouted after 2015.The JJ clusters are home to thousands of working-class people, such as drivers, domestic workers, vegetable vendors and auto-rickshaw operators, who are an integral part of the city’s informal economy.The 19-year extension is aimed at bringing a large number of newer settlements within the statutory rehabilitation framework, subject to eligibility and other prescribed conditions.When the 2014 survey was conducted, the cut-off date for rehabilitation was 2009. With the proposed cut-off now moving to 2025, officials expect the number of settlements and households requiring assessment to rise substantially. So far, only around 3,500 families who have been living in the slums have been rehabilitated under the policies of Delhi govt under different political parties.Under the revamped policy, eligible residents would be provided multi-storey EWS homes through in-situ rehabilitation, broadly within a 3-km radius of their slums wherever feasible.
