GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10597-5
Housing shortage in a mega city: a spatio‑temporal analysis
of NCT‑Delhi, 2001–2011
Rajesh Kumar Abhay · Madhuri Sharma
Accepted: 24 January 2022 / Published online: 26 February 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022
Abstract Access to safe housing is considered an
essential service as per the United Nation’s sustain-
able development goals. India is currently home to
2.4 billion houses of which 1.6 billion is rural. Dur-
ing 2001–2011, more than half a billion homes were
added, and yet there exists acute shortage of qual-
ity housing with good public amenities. A report on
urban housing shortage prepared by the Technical
Group (TG-12) appointed by the Government of India
estimated that the total number of households without
“decent” housing condition in Indian cities counts to
18.78 million. Lack of sufficient number of houses
adds to congestion and shortage. Misappropriation of
funds further aggravates housing dilapidation, making
the existing homes non-serviceable. Using the frame-
work of TG-12, this study conducts an inter-district
analysis of the obsolescence factor, congestion fac-
tor and homeless households across the megacity of
Delhi for the years 2001 and 2011. Using district as
the scale of analysis, housing shortage is measured by
the Composite Index, computed for all nine districts
R. K. Abhay
Department of Geography, Dyal Singh College, University
of Delhi, New Delhi 110 003, India
e-mail: rkabhay@dsc.du.ac.in
M. Sharma (*)
Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, 416
Burchfiel Geography Building, 1000 Phillip Fulmer Way,
Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
e-mail: msharma3@utk.edu
for 2001 and 2011. We find that the composite index
values are unequally distributed across the megacity’s
districts. During 2001–2011, the overall shortage of
housing had increased in NCT-Delhi, with the high-
est housing shortage felt in North, Central and New
Delhi districts. Out of all nine districts, six showed
increase in housing shortage. Also, the percentage of
homeless households increased across all nine dis-
tricts whereas the percentage of rental accommoda-
tions increased in seven out of nine districts.
Keywords Sustainable development goals ·
Technical group · Dilapidation · Obsolescence factor ·
Congestion factor
The context
Population explosion, urban housing decay and
housing as a basic human right
Housing is one of the basic needs of all human beings
and having access to it improves the overall quality
of life of a person. Housing is also an important and
most reliable source of asset creation and investment
opportunity in any part of the world. Though income
inequality all over the world has spatially manifested
in terms of housing shortages and lack of equitable
housing wealth gains across various races/ethnicities
in the US, in India, housing poverty has taken differ-
ent shapes and forms of socio-spatial manifestations,
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intertwining complexly at the interfaces of spatiality,
class, occupation, caste, religion, and politico-histor-
ical dynamism. In addition to being one of the fastest
growing economies in the world, along with the fast-
est urbanizing country in the developing world, the
housing industry in India has specifically boomed all
over the country, with the developers and the builders
making unimaginable financial gains.
While there is no doubt that having access to
decent quality housing is one of the most important
elements for maintaining quality of life, given the
fast-growing urban population in India, housing also
comprises an important and booming industry as it
associates with emotions of basic life-amenities like
food, shelter, and basic human right (Ezeanah, 2021;
Kothari et al., 2006). Housing fulfills the belonging-
ness aspect of most middle-class aspirants, and buy-
ing a home is also one of the best ways of wealth and
asset creation. In the US, achieving the ‘American
Dream’ involves having access to a decent housing
along with a decent paying job and other life-amen-
ities. In India, like any other developing economy, a
home not only provides physical space to live, but it
also reflects a strategy for human’s survival, liveli-
hood, empowerment, and progress (MoHPA, 2016;
Jain, 2016). Unequal access or uneven distribution
in housing creates threat to sustainable development
(Ahmad, 2015).
In India, the total housing stock has continued to
grow from 52.06 million in 2001 to 78.48 million in
2011, an increase of 51% in 10 years. Subsequently,
it has helped by a decline in overall housing short-
age1from 1.63 million in 2001 (3% of the house-
holds) to 0.39 million (0.5% of the households) by
2011 (MoHPA, 2016). However, despite significant
efforts by the Indian government to improve the qual-
ity of housing (e.g., Kundu & Kumar, 2017; PMAY,
2017; RAY, 2013–22), the cumulative effects in
terms of housing shortage has aggravated consider-
ably. This is because of the housing congestion and
obsolescence2factors which have played signifi-
cant roles toward housing shortage in urban areas of
India (MoHPA, 2016). A Technical Group – known
1
Housing shortage is the difference between the number of
existing households and existing housing stock.
2
The obsolescence factor reflects the household units which
are in poor or bad condition (GOI, 2012).
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GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
as the TG-12—was setup to submit a detailed report
on urban housing shortage by the National Building
Organization, Ministry of Housing and Urban Pov-
erty Alleviation, headed by Amitabh Kundu. This
group submitted a detailed report and estimated that
the total number of households without “decent”
housing in Indian cities was about 18.78 million (GoI,
2012). This number is far above the estimate sug-
gested above which was around 0.39 million in 2011.
Thus, based on a comprehensive quality of housing
necessary for decent human survival, Amitabh Kun-
du’s estimates on housing shortage in India lays down
a critical and an emergent perspective concerning the
urban areas of India – which is home to more than
one-third of the country’s population (Ahmad, 2015).
With the rapid increase in urban population, hous-
ing structure decay and uncontrolled population den-
sity are the most emergent problems in the cities of
developing economies (Davis 2011; Mitra, 2004,
2006; Sharma, 2017). In addition to the central roles
of urban areas as the propellants of growth engines
(Pacione, 1990, 2003), much of these densely popu-
lated urban decays comprise the industrial centers of
urban spaces which have existed since the onset of
industrial revolutions, and these mutually attractive
forces further add to the overall population explosion
and urban decay processes (Balchin et al., 1988). The
National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT-Delhi or
Delhi now onward), the second most populated city
in India after Mumbai, is one of the 53 million cities
in India (Census of India, 2011). NCT-Delhi is home
to approximately 20 million population, and has a
density of more than 11,000 people per sq. km. Dur-
ing 2001–2011, the NCT-Delhi has had an increase
of 0.8 million households, adding to its already exist-
ing urban built-pressure on the city’s land. The city
continues to receive influx of migrants from all over
the country, including other South Asian nations such
as Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the like (Edelman
and Jiboye, 2009; Mitra, 2006; Mitra, 2006; Mitra
& Murayama, 2009), and these rampant increase in
population puts pressure on an already existing infra-
structure and housing crunch (Mitra & Murayama,
2009). Continuous migration requires adequate and
affordable housing. Large population density leads to
housing congestion and the central parts of the city
are becoming old and dilapidated. Also, while this
era of urbanization in a developing economy of India
is marked with rampant growth in numbers of cities
GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
along with unsustainable crowding of population.
This has been accompanied with deteriorating qual-
ity of housing and housing infrastructure along with
severe scarcity in affordable housing – as laid out in
Kundu’s report (GoI, 2012).
A brief overview of housing studies scholarship
Based on our review of academic work, studies focus-
ing on housing shortage in India and abroad are at
the most limited and scattered. Much of existing
academic work has largely focused on the changing
nature of relationships between urban dwellers and
their urban environments – built and nature, both,
(e.g., Pacione, 1990), along with few scholarly works
on the livability aspects of urban spaces (e.g., Moura-
tidis, 2018, Salama and Wiedmann, 2016, McCann,
2007). Some recent scholarship has started high-
lighting the sustainability aspects of city life along
with discourse analyses along unequitable access
to the livable elements in urban spaces and rights to
the city (Koch and Ahmad, 2017). Within the larger
topic of housing, the most frequently researched top-
ics include quality of housing, affordability, and the
like, and these works have been conducted at the
national, regional and city levels within the devel-
oping and developed countries (Ram and Needham,
Begum et al., 2018). Total housing stock also com-
prises an important area of study, and much of these
have engaged in econometric analyses (Fulpen, 1988;
Kang & Jeon, 2021). Lack of adequate housing still
remains a major challenge in the cities of the develop-
ing countries of the eastern and western hemispheres
alike (Davis, 2011; Jochen et al., 2018; Teotia, 2015).
Among those focused on urban livability, a good
chunk of work has analyzed cities at global and
regional scales while dissecting the relationship of
the residents with their physical and built environ-
ment, along with the available services detrimental
to meeting the expectations of its dwellers (Alderton
et al., 2019; Kovacs-Györi et al., 2019, Kundu, 2016;
Saitluanga, 2014; Pacione, 1990). In much of these
research, the scales of analyses have varied depending
on the objective of each research. In general, though,
several scholars have ranked livability based on spe-
cific types of weighted indices, as well as statistical
models that explored the livability characteristics and
patterns (Alderton et al., 2019, Paul & Sen, 2018,
Salama and Wiedmann, 2016). Our review of relevant
263
literature suggests major focus toward understanding
environmental and sustainable indices concerning
the urban environment (Chiang & Liang, 2013; Zhao
et al., 2009), health and safety (Fu, 2000), economic
and competitive indices concerning demographics
(Balsas, 2004; Tan et al., 2016;), jobs availability and
employment conditions (Balsas, 2004; Lowe et al.,
2015), socio-cultural indices regarding built envi-
ronment and services (Alderton et al., 2019; Kundu,
2016; Pacione, 2003), and the like. Quite often, many
models on assessing urban livability have used ana-
lytical hierarchical processes and entropy indices
(Jia and Gu, 2017, Wei and Zhang, 2016), factor and
principal component analysis (Marsal-Llacuna et al.,
2015; Jia and Gu, 2017), weighted indices for rank-
ing (Newton, 2012), cluster analysis (Paul and Sen,
2018), and GIS and spatial modeling Jia and Gu,
2017; Sofeska, 2017).
Thus, though, there has been negligence of hous-
ing scholarship focused specifically on questions of
housing poverty and housing shortage, especially in
the context of developing economy, there has been
abundance of literature focused on urban livability,
slums and quality of life, and the like. Among the few
that exist, in his analysis of India as a whole, Sandhu
(2000) focused on the concept of housing poverty,
especially from the perspectives of – lack of access
to and deficiency of affordable housing –- and con-
cluded that those hurting the most from housing
shortage include the poor and the low- and low-mid-
dle-income groups of population. The objective of
this study was to evaluate housing poverty at the level
of India – nationally – based on selected indicators
using secondary data sources. It concluded that hous-
ing poverty is determined by socio-economic and
political systems in the country (Sandhu, 2000). This
occurs because of the fragile status of their employ-
ment which is a manifestation of overall declining
quality of employment in the post-Fordist era, impact-
ing all across the world from the Uber-capitalist3 cul-
ture, along with overall lower levels of human capital
attainments predominant among the immigrants(Coe
et al., 2012) that comprise the largest shares of urban
dwellers in the expanding slums in the mega-cities
of a developing economy like India (Sharma, 2017).
3
A culture predominant in post-Fordist era where merit takes
a back seat and merit is largely bought by money.
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In addition, their lack of education and awareness
along with lower financial status poses more frictions
within a corrupted political and bureaucratic system.
When evaluating housing related research, most
studies have analyzed the questions surrounding
growing urbanization and emerging housing short-
age in India as a whole (OECD, 2019). A small num-
ber has focused on the constraints faced by the real
estate developers and their role in bridging the gap
through affordable housing – though this too has
focused on India as a whole (Anonymous, 2012).
Challenges related to affordable rental housing and
need to develop enabling environment with macro-
economic policies to achieve the target of housing for
all in India has also comprised focus of others, though
again at the national level (OECD, 2019; Sriram,
2021). Further, at the national level, the topic of hous-
ing poverty and housing shortage has been addressed
by few (Ahmad, 2015; D’Souza, 2019; Kumar, 2015),
but none of these have addressed the issue within
a city or a state to provide better insights into the
intra-city variations. Research on homelessness has
also gotten attention from researchers (Sattar, 2014;
Kumuda, 2014. Sattar (2014) concluded that the most
vulnerable sections in our society are experiencing
homelessness; most of these are engaged in varieties
of informal economy such as casual wage laborers,
rickshaw-pullers, construction laborers, rag-pickers,
and domestic help. This study was also conducted at
the state level in India, hence providing a macro-scale
analysis. This study addresses housing shortage in
the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India, using
its nine districts as the scale of analysis, for the years
2001 and 2011 and its change over the decade.4 Given
the lack of focus on an important critical aspect of
housing, this research aims to fulfil two main objec-
tives: (1) to understand the change in total numbers
of households and its density in the districts of NCT-
Delhi, and (ii) to measure the inter-district spatio-
temporal patterns of housing shortage during the last
4
Due to the unprecedented delay in the Census 2021 count in
India, we are unable to conduct this analysis for the 2021 Cen-
sus, which would have been ideal to measure two decades of
housing shortage in India and in NCT-Delhi. However, within
the contextual framing of housing shortage as suggested by
Amitabh Kundu, we hope to highlight the intra-urban shortage
in NCT’s districts such that adequate attention can be drawn
toward those specific regions.
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two censuses (2001–2011) so as to better understand
the areas needing future attention.
The rest of the paper follows in three sections. The
research design section discusses the science behind
the selection NCT-Delhi for this study, the districts as
the scale of analysis, sources of data, and the meth-
odological steps involved in addressing the research
objectives. The results and discussion section
explains the findings from the multi-step data analysis
that engaged in statistical computation of the housing
shortage index, as measured here by the Composite
Index, and various cartographic and descriptive sta-
tistical analyses. Finally, the conclusions highlight the
major findings pertaining to the spatio-temporal vari-
ations in housing shortage within and among the nine
districts of NCT-Delhi.
Research design
The study area and scale of analysis
We chose NCT-Delhi for this study because of its
socio-economic and political significance at national
and international scale. Within the context of India,
Delhi holds special place due to its national and
global significance as a political and economic hub in
the fastest growing region of the world. It contributes
to the country’s economy through significant shares
of total employment and tax revenues. According
to the Master Plan of Delhi (MPD 2021), Delhi is a
major center for wholesale markets dealing with tex-
tiles, stationery, iron and steel, auto parts and modern
technology. Given the focus of this research, we also
found that out of the five largest metropolises of India,
Delhi ranked as the one with the highest density of
population added during the 2001–2011 decade
(+ 1,980 people per square kilometer) (Table 1:A). As
such, it made sense to contextualize the problem of
housing shortage in Delhi.
Delhi is located by the banks of river Yamuna and
is surrounded by the state of Uttar Pradesh to its east
and Haryana to its north, west and south. Within its
1,483 sq. km. of areal sprawl, Delhi is home to 16.4
million people in 2011, which was 13.85 million in
2001, exhibiting a growth rate of more than 2% per
annum (Census of India, 2011). Its 2011 population
density of 11,320 people/sq. km is one of the high-
est among world’s largest mega cities, with intra-city
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Table 1  Change in population size and population density in India’s five largest metropolises (A) and change in household density
in Delhi (B), 2000, 2011 and 2001–2011
A: Population Growth and Change in Density in Top Five Metropolises of India, 2001 and 2011
City Population (Million) Population Growth (%) Density of Population, Increase in Population Density
(People/ sq. km.)
2001 2011 2001–2011 2001 2011 2001–11

Mumbai 11.91 12.44 4.4 19,758 20,634 + 876

Delhi 13.85 16.4 21.2 9,340 11,320 + 1,980 (Highest)
Kolkata 13.22 14.1 6.7 24,718 24,306 − 412
Chennai 6.42 8.7 35.5 24,963 26,553 + 1590
Bangalore 5.69 8.5 49.4 2,985 4,378 + 1393
B: Number of Households and Change in Household Density in Delhi, 2001 and 2011
Districts No. of Households Area Household Density Difference in Household
(Sq. km.) (Households/Sq. km) Density, 2001–2011
2001 2011 2001 2011

North-West 5,22,254 7,32,966 443 1179 1655 + 476

North 1,40,688 1,74,779 61 2306 2865 + 559
North-East 2,92,357 4,04,676 62 4715 6527 + 1812
East 2,65,990 3,57,173 63 4222 5669 + 1447
New Delhi 38,120 32,051 35 1089 916 − 173
Central 1,16,182 1,15,090 21 5532 5480 − 52
West 4,07,473 5,30,467 130 3134 4081 + 946
South-West 3,31,373 4,91,521 421 787 1168 + 380
South 4,39,712 5,68,863 247 1780 2303 + 523
NCT-Delhi 25,54,149 34,07,586 1483 1722 2298 + 575

Source: (A)Source: Census of India, 2001 and 2011 available at https://​mohua.​gov.​in/​cms/​number-​of-​citie​s--​towns-​by-​city-​size-​class.​

php, and https://​www.​cityp​opula​tion.​de/​en/​india/​mahar​ashtra/ and (B) Census of India, 2001–2011(Bold values represent high posi-
tive change, Italics are negative chance)

density varying from 4,057 persons in New Delhi
district to 36,155 persons in North-East Delhi district
(Census of India, 2011). North-East district in NCT-
Delhi is also the highest population density in Asia
at the district (intra-city) level. In terms of population
size, the North-west district is the largest district, with
almost more than 20% population out of all remain-
ing districts, and in 2011, it contained more than 3.5
million compared to others. Only four out of nine
districts had population exceeding 2 million whereas
New Delhi district had the least at 0.58 million (Cen-
sus of India, 2011). In this study, we focus on the
nine districts of NCT-Delhi as our scale of analysis.
These include the North, North-East, East, South,
South-West, West, North-West, Central Delhi and
New Delhi districts (Fig. 1). Districts serve as a good
point of intervention for intra-urban housing poverty
analysis as rich quality data is available at this scale
for both census years of 2001 and 2011. Given the
focus of this analyses limited to 2011 (due to unprec-
edented delay in 2021 Census count), districts were
the finest scale at which decadal change analysis was
possible.
Data sources and methodology
This study collates rich quality secondary data
from various sources. These include the Census of
India reports (2001, 2011a, 2011b), District Cen-
sus Handbooks (2011), Government of India reports
etc. Relevant data are collected, sorted, filtered, and
processed based on the objectives of this research.
Authors’ primary observations, lived in experi-
ences, participant observations and neighbourhood

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Fig. 1   The Study Area.
Source: Prepared by authors
based on Census of India,
2001 and 2011
reconnaissance during numerous urban-focused field-
based research projects also substantiate our analyti-
cal findings that corroborate the census-based find-
ings. Regarding measuring housing shortage in an
urban context, scholars have relied upon a variety of
methods and indices, often using normalization pro-
cess along with a combination of variables that make
most sense to the research question addressed. There
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are various methods available for normalization of
data and combining them using composite index to
identify regional patterns which are used by differ-
ent scholars in urban, rural and regional level studies
(Greco et al., 2019). The standardized z-score method
has been applied at the block level (sub-district level)
in the city-level studies such as Jaipur and Hyderabad
(Kumar and Sharma, 2016, Sehra and Punia, 2019).
GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
Table 2  Selected group Group Group
and indicators to measure
housing shortage I The Obsolescence Factor
II The Congestion Factor
Source: Adopted and
Modified from Technical
Group on Urban Housing III Homeless People
Shortage for the 12th Plan
(TG-12)
In other context, proportionate standardized mean
method has been adopted at the regional level to
measure the agricultural development in a plateau
area of the State of Odisha (Abhay and Patra, 2018).
The min-max method is quite popular and has been
largely used to measure the performance of sustaina-
ble development goals achievement with reference to
the set targets in India at the state level (Niti Aayog,
2021). These methods have been used at the micro
to macro level to identify the regional patterns and
variations in development based upon data standardi-
zation, and then calculating the composite index. In
our current study, we use the Kundu (1980) method
because of its simplicity and ease of its application
and understandability among the larger scholarly
and generic audience. As such, to measure housing
shortage (i.e., housing poverty) – the core focus of
this research, we create a composite index that uses
six different and yet related indicators, data for which
are gathered under three groups. These three groups
of indicators were also adopted by the TG-12 of the
Government of India (GoI, 2012). The three groups
of indicators include: (I) the obsolescence factor, (II)
the congestion factor, and (III) the homeless people.
Each of these three groups are represented by two
indicators each (Table 2).
The obsolescence factor reflects the household
units that are in poor or bad condition to a level that
they can be repaired and made livable (GOI, 2012).
These shelters are of substandard quality and lack
safety to human life. This group is represented by two
indicators: the percentage of non-serviceable house-
holds and percentage of dilapidated households in
the district in the year 2001 and 2011. Non-service-
able households cannot be repaired and are made
of locally and freely available materials like thatch,
bamboo, plastic or polythene etc. These houses are
highly vulnerable and mostly located in the congested
areas comprising the poorest of families. Dilapidated
267
Indicator Unit
Non-serviceable households %
Dilapidated households %
Household size %
Dwellings with two rooms and less: %
Homeless Households %
Households living in rented accommodation %
homes are the decayed shelters (DCHB, 2011). The
Census of India identifies and classifies the census
houses into good, livable, and dilapidated – based on
the perception of the respondents of their home qual-
ity, and hence there is an element of subjectivity in
these definitions (Census of India, 2001). Proper
maintenance and lack of sufficient funds create an
ideal condition for increase in poorer quality housing
and hence a decline in livable and affordable housing.
The congestion factor implies a situation when
the overall density of housing within an area is unac-
ceptable – creating very congested conditions which
could be dangerous for human life. This group is
measured by average household size, and numbers of
dwellings with two rooms and less. It is hypothesized
that the households larger in size are more congested
than those smaller in size. However, the current indi-
cator alone doesn’t depict a complete picture, and
hence we also use the second indicator to account for
this aspect of congestion. Thus, the second indicator
assumes that higher the percentage of dwellings with
two rooms and less, higher is the congestion within
an area. Higher congestion in an area explains that
the shortage of housing is high. Please note that these
indicators taken collectively reflect the field-based
nuanced understanding of congestion and housing
shortage in Delhi, and that the dwellings with two
rooms or less many not necessarily imply the same
meaning in the context of other cities or other coun-
tries. This, this indicator is specific to NCT-Delhi.
Finally, the third group of indicators include
aspects of the homeless people. Homelessness occurs
due to many factors such as lack of affordable housing
and/or capability to pay rent. Lower income groups
and the marginalized sections of a society such as
the unemployed, working poor, and the elderly gen-
erally have lower levels of residential ownership
(owned and rented both) because of high cost of rent-
ing, buying or constructing a house (Kumar, 2016).
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As such, this aspect is represented by two indicators:
homeless households and households living in rented
accommodation. According to the Census of India
(2011), the households who do not reside in census
houses or buildings are termed homeless Households.
These homeless households are found to be located
along the roadside, under the flyover, pavements, in
hume pipes,5 places of worship, railway platforms
etc. People with no income or low income are una-
ble to afford a house in a megacity, and hence, settle
down in rented accommodation. Thus, both indicators
together reflect housing shortage based on the eco-
nomic criteria.
All the six indicators discussed above are inte-
grated into composing an index – by using the com-
putation process illustrated in Kundu (1980). This
Composite Index is calculated by normalizing the
data, using the Eq. (1) below (Kundu, 1980). At the
district level, a scale-free composite index is obtained
by dividing each observation of indicator by its mean
value. All these values are then combined for each
district and finally, by dividing the summed value by
N (Eq. 1) a composite index for the housing shortage
is developed.
( )
n
∑ Xi
Composite Index (CI) = ∕N (1)
i=1 Xi
where, Xi is indicator I, X i ismeanof indicatori., and N
is the number of indicators.
In this index, a higher value represents a
higher level of housing shortage and vice-versa.
Based on the values computed for all the districts,
using these 6 indicators across NCT-Delhi, we further
classify the computed housing shortage, at the district
level, into three – high, moderate, and low. We use
the cut off values of 35th and 65th percentiles as the
categories of low (CI < 35th percentile), average (CI
between 35 and 65th percentile) and high (CI > 65th
percentile). This is followed by explanation of the
local-level factors that could be responsible for hous-
ing shortage in these districts.
5
Home pipes are huge pipes lying near the construction sites.
When these lay there for long time, often the homeless use it
as their shelter, since these are strong pipes made from con-
crete and other material that provide safety against rain, cold,
etc.
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Results and discussion
Increase in households and their density, 2001–11
The total number of households in Delhi has increased
by 0.85 million during the decade of 2001–2011
(Table 1:B). Consequently, the household density has
also increased during the same period, with average
household density increasing from 1722 (2001) to
2298 (2011). During 2001, its value ranged from 787
per sq. km. in South-West district to 5,532 households
per sq. km. in Central Delhi district, whereas in 2011,
it ranged from a minimum of 916 per sq. km. in New
Delhi to 6,527 per sq. km. in North-East district. For
overall NCT-Delhi, the household density increased
by 575 households per sq. km. during this decade,
contributing toward far more congestion.
At the district level, most of the districts expe-
rienced increase in household density except two
-- Central and New Delhi where it declined. These
two districts, Central (-52) and New Delhi (-173) are
located in the core/downtown of the city and due to
higher congestion and high cost of renting or own-
ing (Table 1:B), people now prefer to move into the
peripheral areas, with relatively lesser congestion and
better housing condition. Central Delhi district had a
maximum population density of 5,532 households per
sq. km. in 2001, and this district contains some of the
most famous old historical spaces of the city – with
its core and major markets like the Chandni Chowk,
Kamala Market, Old Delhi, and the like. In 2011,
North-East Delhi, with the highest population density,
has concentrations of more than 6,500 households per
sq. km. This district also grew by the greatest number
of households –an increase of 1,842 households dur-
ing the decade. Also worth noting is the fact that out
of all nine districts of Delhi, the presence of home-
less households increased in all (Table 3:A), whereas
seven out of nine districts showed increase in rental
accommodation households. In terms of percent
dwellings with two or lesser rooms, only East dis-
trict showed increase (0.21) whereas others showed
decline. In general, the indicators of non-serviceable
households, dilapidated households, mean household
size, and dwellings with two rooms or less, almost all
the nine districts shows negative change – implying
good progress and betterment in these attributes in
2011 compared to 2001 (Table 3:B and Fig. 5).
GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278 269

Table 3  Status of Selected Indicators at NCT-Delhi Level and District Level, 2001, 2011 and Change
A: Change in Six Parameters, Overall Delhi
Selected Indicators 2001 2011 Change (2011–01)

Non− serviceable households 1.29 0.5 − 0.79

Dilapidated households 5.94 2.88 − 3.06
Household size 5.1 4.9 − 0.20
Dwellings with two rooms and less: 65.97 63.12 − 2.85
Homeless Households 0.39 0.68 + 0.29
Households living in rented accommodation 28.82 30.89 + 2.07
B: Percent Change in Six Parameters, District Scale Analyses
Districts Non− Serviceable Dilapidated Mean House- Dwellings with two Homeless Households in
Households Households hold Size rooms/less Households Rental Accommo-
dation

North West − 0.28 − 1.98 − 0.49 − 1.20 0.14 4.38

North − 3.95 − 5.11 − 0.47 − 5.13 0.97 − 3.22
North East − 0.51 − 2.26 − 0.51 − 2.56 0.11 2.68
East − 1.44 − 2.17 − 0.72 0.21 0.25 5.84
New Delhi − 0.59 − 5.28 − 0.27 − 2.40 2.17 7.94
Central − 2.63 − 3.36 − 0.50 − 3.70 1.74 − 7.68
West − 0.13 − 2.66 − 0.43 − 3.59 0.16 3.60
South West − 0.29 − 2.42 − 0.63 − 5.02 0.11 2.85
South − 0.50 − 2.40 − 0.35 − 2.62 0.48 2.20
C: Descriptive Statistics and Percentile Values

Mean − 1.15 − 3.07 − 0.49 − 2.89 0.68 2.07

Range 3.82 3.30 0.45 5.34 2.07 15.63
Minimum − 3.95 − 5.28 − 0.72 − 5.13 0.11 − 7.68
Maximum − 0.13 − 1.98 − 0.27 0.21 2.17 7.94
20th − 2.63 − 5.11 − 0.63 − 5.02 0.11 − 3.22
35th − 1.01 − 3.01 − 0.51 − 3.65 0.15 2.44
40th − 0.59 − 2.66 − 0.50 − 3.59 0.16 2.68
50th − 0.51 − 2.42 − 0.49 − 2.62 0.25 2.86
60th − 0.50 − 2.40 − 0.47 − 2.57 0.48 3.60
65th − 0.40 − 2.33 − 0.45 − 2.48 0.72 3.99
80th − 0.28 − 2.17 − 0.35 − 1.20 1.74 5.84
Source: Calculated by authors based on data collected from Census of India, 2001 and 2011, Negative Change implies that the val-
ues were lower in 2011 than in 2001 and vice versa. Cells with positive values (shaded) indicate that these attributes were higher in
2011 than in 2001

Indicators for housing shortage
The obsolescence factor
Non-Serviceable Households: Over the decade,
the number of non-serviceable households have
declined in Delhi, from 1.29% in 2001 to 0.5% in
2011 (Table 3:A) as well as in all the districts. Five
districts have more than 1% of their total households
in ‘non-serviceable’ category; in 2011, however, less
than 1% of households in all these districts were non-
serviceable. This speaks of significant progress, with
things moving in the right direction as far as service-
able housing is concerned. In 2001, almost 1.3% of
total households in NCT-Delhi were non-serviceable,
which reduced to 0.5% by 2011. The distribution of

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Fig. 2  Indicators reflect-
ing Obsolescence Factor.
Source: Prepared by authors
based on Census of India,
2001 and 2011
such households was largely in the districts of North,
Central and East Delhi in 2001. However, the spatial
patterns and concentration of these changed signifi-
cantly by 2011. This distribution pattern is more vis-
ible in North-West Delhi, New Delhi and East Delhi
districts (Fig. 2A). Indeed, the percent change in all
the size parameters illustrating various aspects of
housing shortage is compiled in Table 3 (B), and as
is obvious, almost all the nine districts have shown
growth and progress from 2001 to 2011 for the per-
cent change in non-serviceable households, dilapi-
dated households, mean size of households and dwell-
ings with two rooms or less (Table 3:B). The percent
homeless households, however, show increase in all
the nine districts, and its overall cumulative effect is
felt for NCT-Delhi (Table 3 A & B); likewise, while
the NCT-Delhi shows an overall gain in rental accom-
modations, at the scale of districts, Central (-7.68)
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GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
and North (-3.22) are the only two that indeed showed
decline.
Dilapidated Households: Dilapidated house-
holds include houses in decayed or in deteriorated
shape. Houses become decayed due to poor mainte-
nance and lack of investment in improving the hous-
ing quality (Dey, 2020). Like the non-serviceable
households, these households are found where peo-
ple generally are low income or with lower surplus/
disposable income. We find that while the overall
percentage of dilapidated housing has decreased
in NCT-Delhi from almost 6% in 2001 to 2.9% in
2011 (Table 3:A), its geographic dispersal is indeed
expanding. Dilapidation is high in the central parts
of the city that were historically developed long ago
and comprise the core of the city during 2001. The
districts of North, Central and New Delhi showed
higher concentration of such dilapidated households
in Delhi; however, in 2011, the largest district,
GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
Fig. 3  Indicators of
Congestion Factor. Source:
Prepared by authors based
on Census of India, 2001
and 2011
North-West Delhi also shows higher concentration
of such households (Fig. 2B and Table 3:B). More
congestion areas cost much higher amounts for con-
struction and repair work, and discontinued mainte-
nance leads to further dilapidation of these house-
holds. Dilapidation is low in the peripheral districts
due to these being recently built and newly emerg-
ing housing societies supported largely by various
government housing schemes in North-West, West
and South-West districts (e.g. PMAY, 2017; RAY,
2013–22).
The congestion factor
Household size: The census defines household size as
the number of people occupying a housing together.
At the political unit, a district or state, this data is
represented by average household size. Overall, the
household size in Delhi has decreased from 5.1 to
4.9 during 2001–2011 decade (Table 3:A); however,
271
there are regional variations. North-East district has
the maximum household size in both census years
(5.7 in 2001 and 5.5 in 2011) whereas New Delhi
has the lowest household size in both census years
(4.8 and 4.3 respectively, Table 3:B). The districts of
North, Central and North-East belong to the highest
household sized parts of NCT-Delhi (Fig. 3A).
Dwellings with two rooms and less: The census
defines a dwelling room if it has walls with a door-
way and a roof. Further, it should be long and wide
enough so that humans can easily sleep. The census
elaborates that the dwelling room should include
a living room, bedroom, dining room along with
drawing room, study room, servant’s room, and
other habitable rooms (Census of India, 2011). Dur-
ing 2001–2011, the percentage of dwellings with
two rooms or less has decreased from 66 to 63%
(Table 3:A). However, the concentration of such
households is found in the districts of North, Cen-
tral and New Delhi, and these are located around the
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 272
Fig. 4  Homeless House-
holds. Source: Prepared by
authors based on Census of
India, 2001 and 2011
highly developed core of the city. East Delhi doesn’t
show any change, whereas other districts have shifted
from low to a moderate category of dwelling size and
vice-versa (Table 3B and Fig. 3B).
The homeless
Homeless Households: In Delhi, the number of
homeless households has increased from 10,044 in
2001 (0.39%) to 23,175 in 2011 (0.68%) (Table 3:A)
(Census of India, 2011). Figure 4A clearly displays
the spatial pattern of homeless households across
the districts. All the nine districts have experienced
increase in total number of homeless households
during this decade. The maximum homeless popula-
tion lives in the Central Delhi district in both census
years– 2.10%in 2001 and 3.84% in 2011 (Fig. 4A).
This area is regarded as the historical/traditional cen-
tral business district of Delhi, which houses numer-
ous historically developed businesses from ages. The
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labor engaged here in a variety of formal and infor-
mal economic sectors have migrated from surround-
ing states, and are barely able to meet their ends meet,
and are generally struggling for purchasing the houses
here (Sattar, 2014; Sharma, 2017). This forces them
to live by the street sides and on footpaths and in tem-
porary night shelters -locally known as rain basera
(authors’ field reconnaissance).
Households living in rented accommodation: A
household is considered living in a rented house if
rent is paid or contracted for by the household in cash
or in kind. More than one-fourth of the households in
Delhi are rental accommodation. It has crossed 30%
percent mark in 2011 from 28% in 2001 and is esti-
mated to be around one-third in 2021. Rental house-
holds are concentrated toward the south and south-
eastern parts of NCT-Delhi (Fig. 4B). The quality of
housing is better in these parts of Delhi and these also
comprise the more expensive housing. Even though
many people can’t afford the higher costs, many
GeoJournal (2023) 88:261–278
families still prefer better quality housing, and hence
rent in these locations (authors’ field reconnaissance).
The rural–urban fringe characteristics are more domi-
nant towards west and north-west Delhi where hous-
ing ownership is high.
Spatio‑temporal patterns of housing shortage and
change, 2001–2011
We also map the change variable for all six param-
eters comprising the housing shortage index of the
Composite Index (Fig. 5). To better understand the
inter-district variation, we use the 2­ 0th percentile val-
ues as the cut-off level for mapping these patterns
and we find that in terms of percent non-serviceable
households and dilapidated households, in general,
the north and northwestern parts of Delhi have the
highest negative values (implying improved condi-
tions over 2001 to 2011). It is attributed to the expan-
sion of newer housing development near and around
the Rohini residential area due to which housing qual-
ity has improved a lot during the 2001–2011 decade.
In terms of dwellings with two rooms or less, the
North, Southwest, West, South and Central districts
made the highest negative change (implying that they
had lower values in 2011 compared to 2001). Only
East district showed positive change (0.209) for this
parameter, corroborating with the fact that this is that
part of Delhi that houses the highest and the dens-
est presence of slums and informal settlements. Over
time, in many of these communities, paternal prop-
erty gets divided equally among the male children and
consequently the size of the houses gets smaller and
smaller. Thus, in East Delhi district, the dwellings
are relatively smaller in size with two rooms and less
and there is dominance of such units in this location.
Finally, as noted earlier too, the presence of home-
less households has increased across all nine districts,
with the highest gain in New Delhi and Central dis-
tricts, whereas the highest positive gain in terms of
rental accommodations have occurred in New Delhi,
East and Northwest districts, whereas the only two
districts that showed decline in rentals include Cen-
tral and North districts (Fig. 5: lower row). New
Delhi and Central Delhi comprise the core of the city
and represent the central business district also; conse-
quently, the housing cost is very high, making it very
difficult to afford a home in these districts. However,
given the attraction factor of these centrally located
273
opportunities, the educated genre prefer renting in
these locations, hence attributing to increase in per-
centage of rented accommodations over the decade
(Fig. 6).
Finally, based upon the indicators discussed above,
the housing shortage index is measured by the Com-
posite Index using Kundu’s (1080) methods. All the
nine districts are grouped into three categories in
terms of housing shortage (35th and 65th percen-
tile values as the cut-off scale). We find that out of 9
districts, 3 districts (North, Central and New Delhi)
fall in high shortage category (CI > 1.0) in 2001. All
these districts have shown higher values for most
indicators. These districts are in the central parts of
Delhi, characterized with historical development with
unplanned urbanization. All these factors have con-
tributed toward higher congestion in these areas (e.g.
Chandni Chowk located in Central Delhi). New Delhi
area is characterized by commercial activities where
migrant population comprise large numbers and are
generally homeless. Due to multi-story accommo-
dation patterns, the congestion factor also becomes
high. Even in 2011, the same three districts show
highest housing shortage. These three districts have
remained as the most housing poor/shortage category
in 2001 and 2011 both.
Districts located in the western parts of the study
area exhibit lower housing shortage due to low pop-
ulation and large geographical coverage (below 0.8)
during 2001. Four districts, namely, North-West,
West, South-West and North-East fall in this category.
The lived-in experiences of author(s) suggest that
in these districts, people have single-storied homes
with complete ownership. These areas include the
sub-districts of Najafgarh, Narela, and Punjabi Bagh
– largely located in the west, north-west and south-
western parts of Delhi, where population density is
relatively low. Simultaneously, in the sub-districts of
Seemapuri and Seelampur, the population density is
also high, but these comprise the rental homes; how-
ever, the percentages of rented accommodation are
comparatively low. But during 2011, three out of four
districts have jumped from low housing shortage to
moderate housing shortage (index score between 0.8
and 1.0). It reflects that during the decade, the hous-
ing demand has increased due to increase in popula-
tion size. South Delhi and East Delhi district shows
moderate housing shortage and have been in the same
category during both the census years.
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◂Fig. 5  Percent Change in Six Indicators in Delhi, 2001–2011.
Source: Calculated by authors and prepared based on Census
of India, 2001 and 2011
Owning a home in Delhi, the capital of India, is
a dream of many people who come here in search
of work. Authors’ lived-in experiences suggest that
a single room dwelling costs approximately 10–12
times the average middle-class income in North-East
Delhi, and that too in a highly congested community.
The average cost of homes in Delhi is so high that
without financial support or loans, it is too difficult to
buy a home. As mentioned earlier, a home contributes
toward quality of life, and if most part of a house-
hold’s total income is spent on housing, it leaves the
family with far less money to spend on other neces-
sary expenses such as food, children’s education,
medicine, clothing, etc., and hence how much a per-
son spends on housing does impact the overall qual-
ity of life of the family. As such, many people prefer
rental accommodation, which indirectly also attrib-
utes toward negligence in maintenance and repairs of
home – adding to the overall dilapidation of the hous-
ing stock. These conditions further get aggravated
when government does nothing to provide affordable
housing with sufficient space and livable amenities.
Conclusions
This analysis aimed to understand the spatio-tem-
poral patterns of housing shortage in NCT-Delhi
during 2001 and 2011, using the novel Composite
Index, using the districts as the scale of analysis. We
found that during 2001–2011, an overall increase of
0.85 million homes in Delhi was accompanied by an
increase of density of 575 households per sq. km.,
thence contributing toward greater built-area density,
and making the city more congested. Further, NCT-
Delhi has experienced a rapid population growth
during this period, and this trend is expected to con-
tinue in the future, with growth vertically as well as
horizontally. Such uncontrolled increase in popu-
lation requires investment by government and pri-
vate–public partnership-based developers and build-
ers who can build affordable and quality housing so
that the economic contributions of migrating people
can continue with these mega-city engines of eco-
nomic growth and expansion. Delhi has large human
275
resource base and continues to top the global chart in
terms of its economic and political power.
In this analysis, we find that all the three groups
selected for identifying the housing shortage illustrate
the reality on the grounds. The extremely high level
of congestion is felt because a huge number – + 1,980
more people got added in terms of population den-
sity, and more than 575 households have gotten
added per square kilometre just during 2001–2011.
This is an enormously high density of urban popu-
lation explosion and urban development based on
any international parameter of sustainable and qual-
ity living. While the housing shortage in urban India
is amplifying, its worsts effects are felt far greater
among the poorer segments of these urban dwellers,
many of whom are forced to take shelters in the hume
pipes and become homeless. This analysis shows an
unpleasant statistic, with positive growth in the home-
less households across the board. This is an unaccep-
table truth, given that we are in twenty-first century
India, and a timeline wherein India boasts itself of
becoming the third largest economy in the world in
less than a decade. This poses serious questions and
challenges for policymakers as to what they can do to
provide better quality and affordable housing.
At the level of Delhi, the obsolescence and con-
gestion factors show overall decline, but the dis-
trict-level regional variations are worrisome. The
homeless households have shown increasing trend,
which is adding to the numbers of rental accom-
modations, as well as in the mushrooming of slums,
especially by those who can’t afford to rent. The
spatial patterns of housing shortages show increase
with time, which is not a welcoming news for any
administration. The districts have moved in the
moderate level of housing shortage category from
the low-level of housing shortage category, hinting
toward the upcoming magnitude of the problem.
Therefore, it is recommended that appropriate inter-
ventions be made from the state and the central gov-
ernment that can control further aggravation of this
problem. NCT-Delhi holds a special place in the
country regarding its political economic standing
in the eastern hemisphere as well as in the world,
and there is a need to bring in special types of urban
housing and dwelling program to its residents to
keep the mega-city an attractive place to live and
work.
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Fig. 6  Spatio-Temporal
Patterns of Housing Short-
age in NCT-Delhi. Source:
Calculated by authors and
prepared based on data
from Census of India, 2001
and 2011
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