By Amir Hyder Khan

Delhi’s ambitious Master Plan for 2047 promises new housing, transit-oriented development, economic corridors and expanded infrastructure as part of the larger project of making the capital a globally competitive city. But behind these targets lies a more fundamental question: Who gets to belong to the Delhi being built?

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Planning is often presented as a technical exercise involving land use, density, roads and infrastructure. In reality, it determines who gets access to housing, employment and public space, who benefits from rising land values and who bears the costs of development.

The G20 Summit in 2023 offered a revealing glimpse of this contradiction. As Delhi prepared to host global leaders, roadside vendors were removed from prominent locations and informal settlements were screened from public view. The episode exposed an uncomfortable truth: Delhi needs its informal economy, but often does not want its informal workers to be visible. Street vendors, construction workers, domestic workers, sanitation workers, small traders and delivery riders are essential to the functioning of the capital. Yet they are frequently treated as obstacles to a cleaner and more “planned” city.

Gig workers make this contradiction particularly clear. Delhi’s platform economy increasingly depends on delivery riders who move through the city at all hours. Yet conventional planning rarely recognises them as an urban constituency. A delivery worker needs more than roads. They need safe parking, toilets, drinking water, charging points, rest spaces and affordable housing close to employment centres.

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Housing presents a similar problem. The existence of housing in peripheral locations alongside continued informal housing closer to employment demonstrates the limitations of a numbers-based approach. For a low-income household, housing cost includes rent, transport, commute time, childcare and access to employment. A formally affordable house can become unaffordable if reaching work consumes hours and a significant share of household income.

Caste and occupation continue to shape access to housing, land, dignity and public services. Workers concentrated in sanitation, waste management and other precarious occupations face insecurities that cannot be captured by income classifications alone. Likewise, women’s inclusion cannot be achieved simply by adding toilets or childcare facilities. The location of affordable housing affects commuting, unpaid care work and access to employment. Housing, transport and care infrastructure must therefore be planned together.

The same principle applies to persons with disabilities. A ramp is meaningless if the pavement leading to it is inaccessible or public transport cannot be reached independently. The test should be whether a person with a disability can independently travel from home to wherever necessary for work, education, healthcare and recreation.

Rehabilitation must also protect livelihoods. The principle of “Jahan jhuggi, wahan makan” is important, but relocation cannot simply mean moving residents to distant housing. It also raises the question of who captures the value created by public investment. New Metro lines and commercial corridors increase surrounding land values. If these gains accrue primarily to property owners while poorer residents are priced out, public investment risks producing private wealth while socialising displacement.

The real test of Delhi 2047 is not whether the capital becomes richer, taller or more connected. It is whether the people who build, clean, deliver, drive and sustain the city can still afford a place in its future.

Khan is a Delhi-based architect