The recent tragedies in Hauz Rani and Saidulajab, that together claimed nearly 30 lives, are not isolated accidents, but the inevitable outcome of a planning model that has failed Delhi. For decades, public debate has focused on illegal buildings, unauthorised colonies and encroachments as though they are aberrations that emerged despite planning. The reality is more uncomfortable. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo) For decades, public debate has focused on illegal buildings, unauthorised colonies and encroachments as though they are aberrations that emerged despite planning. The reality is more uncomfortable. The landscape of urban villages, unauthorised colonies, informal rental housing and mixed-use neighbourhoods is not a deviation from Delhi’s development story, but the story itself. It is this story that the Hindustan Times’s ongoing series has highlighted: how decades of planning failures led to the rise of unauthorised colonies outside any regulatory framework; how the city failed to plan for migrant workers, students, and young professionals and pushed them to neighbourhoods where death lurks in every flimsy building; how encroachments have rendered even access to a footpath an anomaly; …