Story of Gole Market

Address: Kali Bari, G-Point, Gole Market

Year of displacement: 2010

No. of families displaced: 300-350

Current Status: Still awaiting rehabilitation

In 1984, this was an empty expanse of land. Having nowhere else to go, daily wage workers and people selling wood scraps, started building their lives and homes on that empty, unclaimed and unutilized land. Most families could not afford to built an entire house in one go, and so they built one wall in the first year, the next, in the second and so on. Over the years, as more people moved to the city and in the day, built Dilli as we know it, by night, built their homes bit-by-bit. From a colony of 100 families in 1984, Gole Market quickly grew to being home to around 400-500 families in 2010. In 2010, a single notice was pasted, giving a colony of at least 2000 people, one week to vacate their home of decades. Being resource constraints as they were, they approached many authorities during that week, but to no use. On the morning of November 22^nd 2010 officials from over 5 government departments, and over 20 police officers, came with a written order to break-down 40 houses; Instead in an eviction that lasted for 2 days, they tore down about 300-350 homes, in Gole Market. Over 8 years since that morning of November 2010, despite court orders from long and hard fought legal battles, these families still await allotment of alternate housing, and are living in despicable transit housing. One of these cases, for implementation of the 2011 Delhi High Court judgment is still pending before the Court and is stuck in ownership battle between two government departments.