Policy Briefs & Reports

India’s capital is marked by different settlement types, defined by diverse degrees of formality, legality, and tenure. As part of a larger project on urban transformation in India, Cities of Delhi seeks to carefully document the degree to which access to basic services varies across these different types of settlement, and to better understand the nature of that variation. Undertaken by a team of researchers at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi, the project aims to examine how the residents of the city interact with their elected representatives, state agencies, and other agents in securing public services.

Through three sets of reports, the project provides a comprehensive picture of how the city is governed, and especially how this impacts the poor. The first is a set of carefully selected case studies of slums, known as jhuggi jhopri clusters (JJCs) in Delhi, unauthorised colonies, and resettlement colonies. The second set of studies, of which this is one, explores a range of different processes through which the governing institutions of Delhi engage with residents. The third focuses on selected agencies of governance in Delhi. All reports are made public as they are completed.

Cities of Delhi is directed by Patrick Heller and Partha Mukhopadhyay and coordinated by Shahana Sheikh and Subhadra Banda. The project has received funding from Brown University and the Indian Council for Social Science Research.