Politicians' greed for votes stopping Delhi achieve slum-free

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today admitted that the city government has not been able to achieve the goal of making Delhi a slum-free city as "greedy politicians like me" consider them vote banks.
Speaking at a function organised by industry chamber Assocham, Dikshit touched upon a range of major issues and identified scarcity of housing due to increasing population as key challenge facing the city.
In that context, she said her government had set a goal of riding the city of slums and but it could not be achieved due to lack of political will.
Referring to a observation made at the function by former Lt Governor of Delhi Ramesh Kumar that shanties came first in the city during Asian Games in 1982, Dikshit said politicians' "greed" for votes often force the authorities not to remove them.

"Rameshji is very right when he said the shanties came up during the Asian Games and nobody wants to remove them as politicians like me are greedy enough to say that this is my votebank when we should say that they should go. There is a vested interest," she said.
"But I think we reached a point now that we must put all our efforts to make Delhi a better city and for that to happen we all will have to contribute," she said.

As per official figures, there are 685 slum clusters in the city out of which 352 have come up on land owned by DDA while 333 slums have come up on land owned by Delhi government, Railways, CPWD, NDMC, MCD, Cantonment Board and CPWD.

While identifying problem of housing as major challenge, Dikshit, however, opposed Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath's push for vertical growth in the city, saying she won't allow construction of high-rise buildings as long as she is "alive".
"I agree with you that eventually perhaps Delhi will need high-rise buildings. But it will not be allowed as long as I am alive," she said.