In this era of digital governance, real-time dashboards and “smart” cities, the national capital appears to be trapped in a pre-planning limbo. On paper, Delhi is the showcase of a new India. On the ground, the same old problems persist. In Aali village, located on the banks of the Yamuna in Southeast Delhi, and in its neighbourhood, Okhla, deliberate opacity and planning paralysis has run so deep that it recently turned the homes of ordinary citizens into demolishable encroachments overnight.In December 2025, hundreds were left stranded and out in the cold in two drives, separated by barely a week and conducted by two different state governments, both sealing homes in Aali Gaon and Masjid Colony, Okhla.Bulldozers without mapsIn 2010, the Delhi High Court directed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to prepare proper layout plans for the all villages of the national capital, so that development could proceed on a predictable and lawful basis. That basic requirement remains unfulfilled more than a decade later.A colour-coded revenue map of Aali village, illustrating abadi, agricultural and other land-use areas. Source: Author’s calculations and maps, based on GNCTD and DDA data.This refusal to complete and publish layout plans has created a legal vacuum in which every brick laid by residents is technically unauthorised. Without a sanctioned layout, there is no defined legal way to build, which means people can be treated as potential trespassers on their own land. Such residents end up governed not by clear rules, but by the discretionary power of the next demolition notice.Aali’s manufactured illegalityPast mapping exercises in the village show it spreads over roughly 358 acres, with substantial portions recorded as “out of possession” or folded into unauthorised colonies that received regularisation certificates from the Delhi government in 2008. Yet, there is still no accessible, consolidated layout plan that residents can rely on to understand where village abadi ends, where acquired land begins and which pockets have changed land use.Also read: Why and How India Needs to Develop Post-Pandemic SettlementsDespite the Right to Information (RTI) Act, land details for Aali and many other settlements remain scattered, incomplete or inaccessible to the public. Key documents – land acquisition proceedings, possession reports, mutation entries, change of land use notifications – are not proactively disclosed through any integrated, user-friendly platform.This enforced opacity prevents residents from knowing whether their homes sit on village abadi, gaon sabha land, acquired land or regularised colonies. Yet the administration regularly cites the “illegal” or “unauthorised” status of their constructions to send in bulldozers.The present day ground reality of Aali Gaon emerges when its revenue map is superimposed on its Google Earth location. Credit: Author’s calculations and drawings.Over the decades, land acquisition in and around Aali followed a piecemeal pattern. Some parcels were acquired and taken into possession, others were left hanging, and still others were engulfed by rapidly densifying unauthorised colonies. Villagers were never meaningfully integrated into the city’s planning future through the Master Plan or zonal plans. They were simply surrounded by unregulated growth, their green commons eroded and their traditional livelihoods disrupted without credible alternatives.Snapshot of land acquistion in Aali village. Source: Author, Revenue Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi.The result is a settlement where inhabitants are increasingly invisible in the capital’s political imagination, and where migrants live in particularly precarious shelters that can be erased at short notice.Schemes promise rights the city withholdsThe prime minister’s flagship property-mapping schemes were supposed to end exactly the kind of uncertainty recently witnessed in Aali Gaon and Okhla. The scheme to Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA) and the National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NAKSHA) programme, which are supposed to work in tandem, aim to use drones for surveys and other modern technologies to create accurate parcel maps of village abadi areas and issue property cards that clearly record ownership to village households and urban residents.These schemes are explicitly framed as means to reduce land disputes, improve credit access and support better local planning.In parallel, the PM-UDAY (Prime Mantri Unauthorised Colonies in Delhi Awas Adhikar Yojana) scheme was launched to grant ownership rights to residents of unauthorised colonies identified under a 2019 legislation in Delhi. It promised to convert decades of informality into secure tenure by issuing conveyance deeds and authorisation papers to lakhs of residents in more than 1,700 colonies.Also read: Before Geospatial Bill: A Long History of Killing the Map in Order to Protect the TerritoryPublic communication around PM-UDAY suggested that people living in these settlements could finally invest in their homes without fearing eviction or demolition.Yet, in Aali and adjoining ‘unauthorised colonies’ in Southeast Delhi, both the spirit of SVAMITVA and the promise of PM-UDAY are conspicuously missing. There is no completed, publicly accessible parcel map that residents can download and verify. There is no integrated portal where they can see, in one place, their village boundaries, status of land acquisition, and whether their street falls under a regularised colony, village abadi or some other category.The technology exists, the national schemes exist, but in the capital, the door to the rights that would follow remain effectively closed.From colonial mindset to digital divideColonial land regimes thrived on asymmetry of information: the state knew what was in the records, but the subjects did not. In contemporary Delhi, that logic is being reproduced in digital avatar. The administration stores fragmented bits of land data, which the citizen cannot see as a complete picture. This allows a permanent state of uncertainty, where regularisation or demolition drives can alternate without any transparent explanation to those whose lives are at stake.Between 2019 and 2020 period, the institutions driving demolitions were celebrating regularisations under PM-UDAY, assuring residents that their investments were being recognised. Today, households in Aali and Okhla potentialy face bulldozers in the name of ‘unauthorised construction’, often without being shown the underlying land records, layout plans or acquisition status that would allow them to contest these labels.When the state refuses to publish a map, every settlement becomes vulnerable to being declared an encroachment whenever it is politically or administratively convenient.Also read: Jail Term for Wrong Depiction of Indian Map: An Explainer on the Draft Geospatial BillThis is not mere administrative delay. By withholding maps, layout plans and complete land histories, officials retain maximum discretion while residents bear maximum risk. The “Delhi Model” that emerges is one where the capital’s poorest and most vulnerable residents live in a legally engineered fog, even as the city advertises itself as a global digital leader.What accountability would look likeIf the commitment to “ending colonial mindsets” and ensuring “ease of living” is genuine, Delhi’s governance must begin with the basics: giving people a knowable map and a transparent record of their rights. A few straightforward steps could transform the current manufactured chaos into lawful, participatory planning:Firstly, a court-monitored programme should require the DDA and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to complete, finalise and publicly notify layout plans for all villages within a fixed period, building on the Delhi High Court’s 2010 directions. Layout plans should clearly demarcate village abadi, gaon sabha land, acquired land parcels, green commons and regularised colonies, with online access down to the street and plot level.Secondly, the principles and tools of SVAMITVA – high-resolution mapping, property cards and clear records of rights – should be extended comprehensively to all village and peri-urban areas of Delhi, including those embedded within the urban fabric. Where PM-UDAY applies, conveyance deeds and authorisation certificates should be integrated into a geospatial platform, letting residents see exactly where their holdings are on the legal map.Thirdly, all land acquisition notifications, possession reports, change-of-land-use decisions, regularisation orders and village-wise layout plans should be proactively disclosed through a single, searchable digital portal, rather than scattered across departments. No demolition in a village or city area should proceed unless the relevant layout plan and land records have been publicly available for a reasonable period and residents have been given a real opportunity to challenge errors.The tragedy unfolding in Aali, Okhla, and many other parts of Delhi is not an accident of unplanned growth – it is the outcome of a planning regime that refuses to adopt transparency. Until officials are held accountable to their statutory duties, and every resident can see the map that governs their fate, the national capital will continue to manufacture crises – and send bulldozers behind them.Paras Tyagi is president, Centre for Youth, Culture, Law and Environment (CYCLE), Delhi.