In DDA’s mixed-income housing, the fence that divides ‘us’ and ‘them’

The 8 blocks of Dwarka Greens’ beige-and-white apartments person the aforesaid façade. Other than the level area, the houses successful the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) lodging astatine Dwarka’s Sector 14, Pocket 5, person everything successful common, including entree to gig workers and home help. A gulmohar successful afloat bloom redeems the standard-issue design: buildings with stilt parking, the blocks identified simply by the letters A to H. 

But determination betwixt F and G towers stands a partially erected obstruction with rust-coloured chain-link ligament mesh gate. The panels of the gross present prevarication level connected the ground. G and H towers location residents from Delhi’s economically weaker conception (EWS), with an yearly household income little than ₹10 lakh. Those who ain houses successful A to F towers are from the low- and middle-income groups (LIG and MIG), with one- and two-bedroom houses, respectively. The obstruction was meant to restrict entree to communal areas, accidental residents. 

Dwarka Greens is 1 of the respective mixed-income lodging colonies that DDA offered nether its Diwali Special Housing Scheme 2023. It placed EWS, LIG, and MIG flats wrong a azygous pouch and shared infrastructure: parking, parks, and unfastened spaces. The brochure promised a 1.2-acre cardinal assemblage parkland accessible to each residents wrong a minute’s walk. “Watch your kids play adjacent your home,” it had said. It said thing astir a fence, immoderate residents say, portion others, including the DDA, importune that the obstruction was ever portion of the plan. 

In May 2024, conscionable a period earlier location owners were to instrumentality possession of the houses, 9 allottees from the EWS radical filed a civilian suit against DDA successful a proceedings court. They argued that the strategy had been marketed arsenic a azygous integrated estate, that the brochure mentioned nary fencing, and that restricting entree to the cardinal parkland and assemblage centre violated what they had been promised.

The courts yet ruled successful January 2026, that this was a substance to beryllium decided by Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), which regulates the lodging sector. Now, residents accidental that RERA has asked DDA to mediate, and bring some groups to an understanding. The gross panels, partially installed, person been connected the crushed wrong the society, ever since.

Meanwhile, a Residents Welfare Association (RWA) has been formed by the LIG-HIG houses for their blocks. The EWS allottees reason that DDA collected a communal corpus money for the attraction of the lodging pocket. 

What was meant to beryllium an integrated neighbourhood, nary longer is. The colony has go a tract of wider anxieties implicit class, belonging, and who gets to assertion the communal space.

DDA has launched astir 52 lodging schemes and provided implicit a cardinal homes since 1967, according to its lodging website. While earlier schemes largely offered Janta, LIG, MIG, and high-income radical (HIG) flats successful abstracted pockets and phases, newer projects person sought to accommodate aggregate income groups wrong the aforesaid pocket. 

Its archetypal mandate, nether the Delhi Development Act, 1957, was not chiefly housing; it was an ancillary enactment tied to readying and development. The Master Plan of Delhi 2021, implemented from 2007, mandates that 15% of level country ratio (built-up area) for a task beryllium reserved for lodging for EWS oregon little income.

Between blocks 

Dwarka Greens has 1,008 homes for those who autumn into the EWS category, and 316 each for MIG and LIG apartments, with 3 introduction and exit gates. One gross is connected the G and H blocks’ side.

Ritu, a nonmigratory of G block, was sold connected Dwarka Greens aft she saw the tract plan. The unfastened country promised capable abstraction for her children to play and for her household to exercise. Two years on, her children play conscionable beneath their artifact of houses, and she needs to enactment with them to show the question of cars and bikes. She seldom uses the cardinal park.

“There are nary communal events, nary evening get-togethers wherever women, who are homemakers, conscionable and talk,” she says. “I person ne'er spoken to a pistillate from the different blocks. Hum apna apna rehte hain, wo apna rehte hain,” (We support to ourselves; they support to themselves).

Issues are discussed successful abstracted WhatsApp groups, 1 for A to F and different for G and H. Ritu says that the contented arose from fencing. She calls it a “partition”. “We objected to it, but it has led to unsaid rules successful the society. If a partition comes up and determination is lone 1 gross for each EWS residents, it volition cordon disconnected the cardinal park. If determination is an exigency situation, similar a fire, determination volition beryllium problems,” she says. 

It started 2 months earlier the residents had taken possession of their flats. On April 26, 2024, DDA officials and labourers arrived astatine the complex. Ranjeet Singh, 1 of the archetypal EWS allottees, recalls that helium archetypal got to cognize of the fence-installation program betwixt the blocks then. When residents asked for a written bid authorising the fencing work, the labourers said they had nary and were acting connected oral instructions, accidental those from G and H blocks.

Residents began taking photographs with clip stamps, to papers the erection of the fence. DDA officials returned connected April 29, May 1, and May 5. On May 5, metallic fasteners were installed. On May 9, sections of the mesh obstruction went up, with constabulary beingness connected site. Residents slept successful shifts done those nights, Singh recalls, successful lawsuit workers returned nether the screen of nighttime to rapidly decorativeness the work. The absorption held agelong capable to unafraid the little court’s enactment bid connected May 9. 

Within months of possession, EWS residents recovered that the children from A to F blocks didn’t premix with their children. “There was besides a quarrel implicit who could hoist the emblem on Independence Day in Central Park. We were told that the parkland is theirs, truthful we can’t hoist the emblem there,” says Singh. 

Maps and plans 

The LIG-MIG residents interest that the EWS residents volition usurp their outdoor covered parking, which, they accidental blocks G and H are not entitled to. They were besides to person entree to the basement parking, but that is inactive not operational, 2 years aft handover. In the car parkland basal immoderate luxury cars, Range Rovers, Bentleys, and BMWs. EWS houses get the stilt parking nether their flats.

Some LIG-MIG residents accidental EWS allottees, being much successful number, volition predominate the communal RWA. Others accidental they person much rights due to the fact that of the quality successful attraction charges, fixed their bigger level area. A fewer adjacent drew analogies to wide and air-conditioned coaches connected a train, and accidental that “mixing both” is difficult. One compared the concern to grains mixed with dust. Some asked however a household earning nether ₹10 lakh a twelvemonth could spend a car. 

LIG-MIG residents accidental they are asking lone for what they were sold. Rajesh, a B-block resident, says the obstruction had ever been portion of the representation helium saw. The map, Rajesh claims, helium saw earlier booking the level was from the layout program of the 413th screening committee of DDA held connected June 15, 2023. 

The minutes of this gathering were lone uploaded successful September 2024, months aft the possession of the flats. It is the aforesaid representation which DDA cited to asseverate successful the courts that determination is nary “unauthorized alteration.” It submitted that the proviso for fencing and gates was portion of the layout program approved by the committee, which predates the allotment process. MIG and LIG allottees backmost this, calling the fencing “a information measure” promised to them astatine the clip of booking.

The papers carries the notation “wall/fence & gate” astatine 4 points connected the plan. Two fences with gates flank the installation block, controlling transition from the society’s main gates to the EWS towers. The remaining 2 tally on the either extremity of those blocks, facing the cardinal parkland area.

However, this does not look successful the tract program of Pocket 5 successful the brochure of DDA’s ain lodging strategy documents, including a 2024 DDA Dwarka Housing Scheme brochure, which again enactment immoderate flats from this lodging colony up for sale. 

A elder DDA official, offered a antithetic framing for the fencing successful 2024: it was a “temporary statement to modulate and restrict parking” until an RWA was formed, aft which rules astir timings and the usage of the installation centre and greenish country would beryllium collectively decided. The installation centre itself has not yet opened. 

Another fence, undisputed

A fewer kilometres away, astatine DDA’s Golf View Condos successful Sector 19B, a gangly achromatic chain-link obstruction mounted connected a debased factual partition encloses 2 flat towers down a abstracted entrance. The analyzable overlooks a play people that DDA proudly claims is “the longest public golf course in India”. It is adjacent to the Yashobhoomi Convention Centre, and was sold successful the aforesaid 2023 Diwali scheme. Penthouses present were priced astatine astir ₹5 crore, Super HIG units astatine ₹2.5 crore.

Behind the obstruction are EWS towers, L and M. On the different broadside lies 14-storey A to K towers with playgrounds, sports courts, cycling and walking track, and 3.7 acres of greenish space. The obstruction went up without a recorded dispute.

Sonam Kumari, an EWS allottee successful 1 of the 2 blocks, navigates the compound daily. When her son’s schoolhouse autobus enters the compound done the main gate, she does not locomotion retired done her block’s exit. She cuts done a constrictive transition done the obstruction starring to a assemblage centre that is inactive not opened, steps implicit pipes laid retired connected the ground, to scope him.

A elder DDA official, erstwhile asked astir the fencing astatine Golf View Condos, says, “Fences are determination due to the fact that it is simply a antithetic class of flat.” The pouch has astir 50% occupancy astatine present, with the handover of astir 90% of units ongoing. 

There are 364 flats of implicit 700 successful Tower M, lodging the EWS allottees, which were offered nether a Community Service Personnel scheme. Only existing allottees of penthouses, Super HIG, and HIG units could acquisition these, for their work staff, done an e-auction. Subsidised pricing was removed for these transactions. According to a circular successful March 2025, up to 325 of these units person been sold.

Mixed-income pockets person besides been offered successful Loknayakpuram and Narela nether caller schemes. 

DDA has not responded to a database of questions sent by The Hindu, including immoderate asking astir the reasoning down fencing successful these societies and measures to discourage struggle successful composite lodging colonies.

One pocket, 1 RWA

A nonmigratory of B artifact successful Dwarka Greens pointed to DDA’s Om and Kautilya Apartments, offered successful the precocious 1990s, arsenic a precedent. It has had 2 RWAs for decades: 1 for the LIG flats successful Om Apartments and 1 for the MIG residents of Kautilya Apartments, some registered independently. The question of whether that exemplary was ever regularised, oregon simply allowed to persist, has not been answered by DDA.

The RWA concern astatine Dwarka Greens has its ain contradictions. In October 2025, DDA had written to each allottees urging them to signifier a azygous RWA for the full pocket, citing the lapse of the archetypal year’s upfront attraction money and completion of 80% allotments. But LIG-MIG residents obtained a certificate of registration, signed by the DDA Vice-Chairperson connected December 29, 2025, for a registered bureau covering Blocks A to F, excluding G and H, the EWS towers. However, residents accidental determination was nary election, but idiosyncratic was sanction president. 

After EWS residents objected to the partial registration, DDA clarified successful an April 2026 circular that lone 1 RWA could beryllium recognised nether a azygous lodging pocket, arsenic per its Management and Disposal of Housing Estate Regulations, 1968. DDA is yet to respond to wherefore the certificate had been issued successful the archetypal spot without verifying sum of each allottees. 

A.K. Jain, erstwhile Commissioner of Planning astatine DDA, says, “The lodging absorption rules marque it wide that a lodging strategy volition person a composite lodging nine for the full area. It cannot beryllium subdivided.” On the fencing, helium adds, “This is not legal. Whatever facilities DDA provides are for everyone.”

The aspirations 

Dwarka has changed considerably since DDA began processing it arsenic the capital’s largest planned sub-city successful the 1990s. The Delhi Metro, proximity to the planetary airport, inauguration of the 16-lane Dwarka Expressway, and the upcoming Urban Extension Road II person repositioned the country arsenic a sought-after residential address. Sectors that were erstwhile peripheral person attracted buyers from middle- and upper-income groups looking for planned neighbourhoods.

In what was DDA’s archetypal task of luxury lodging with Dwarka 19B’s Golf View Condos, complaints of residents person emerged astir substandard construction, including rusted robust fittings and seepage, conscionable a fewer months into handing implicit of flats. For residents of Golf View Condos, the process of forming an RWA has not started. 

As residents navigate h2o issues, the deficiency of functional occurrence equipment, and assistance breakdowns, the deficiency of an RWA has not pressed them capable to resoluteness the differences with the society’s residents successful the composite lodging society. While posters for spot income and banners of real-estate brokers bent connected the balconies, immoderate person already converted their location into spot dealership offices. 

Urban Planner Mukta Naik, Fellow, Sustainable Futures Collaborative, a radical of professionals focussing connected environmentally and socially sustainable futures, questions the relation of a nationalist authorization successful imitating a backstage developer model. “DDA is not conscionable a existent property developer. It is simply a nationalist authority, and truthful the facilities it creates should beryllium accessible and inclusive by nature. It has to beryllium much accountable to nationalist needs,” she says. Exclusion, she adds, has “become the aspiration of the mediate classes”.