Jia sarai economy

History and Economy of Jia Sarai

Jia sarai is a maze of lanes, small and big. The buildings are haphazardly constructed on irregular sites. Just like that. No planning, no architecture. Each building is around 4 floors high, each floor has many rooms. The size of the room may vary from 6 feet by 8 feet to 12 feet by 10 feet. Few buildings have 1 BHK flats on each floor apart from just rooms. A building owner here comfortably makes anything from Rs. 40000 to Rs 100000 (tax free as they seldom pay tax on rent collected from students). Ground floors are generally reserved for owners or let out as shops. Jia sarai is a hub for students preparing for competitive exams like IAS, NET, JEE, PSUs etc.
Jia sarai was a small village during Mughal times. There are various such sarais around. Families have been living here for generations. The main occupation during those times varied from tilling to cattle farming. The British didn't interfere much with the villages. Till Lutyens came to plan New Delhi. He uprooted various villages in Southern part of Delhi (during those times there was no single identity called south delhi but a scatter of small sarais or villages). Many of them survived as they were outside the planned city. Jia Sarai is one such village. The villages were not considered a part of the capital city and government decided to declare them red tape area (Lal Dora) for revenue collection purposes. That was during British times.
Times changed.
Delhi changed.
South Delhi developed into the richest part of India (per capita income of south delhi is 1.5 lakh, a mind boggling figure by Indian Standards). The sarais in between are still considered Lal Dora areas by Indian Government. The revenue collection method is different. No stringent laws that apply to capital areas apply here. The residents of sarais are considered as villagers (villagers driving Honda city?) No specifications for buildings exist in sarais. One can build to one's fancy. One can open shops anywhere (that explains numerous hole in the wall tea shops in jia sarai). Even the rules of closing time of shops (viz. 11PM) does not hold here (and that's why you see a Pande selling paratas or a Pandit operating his tea stall at 3 am or for that matter Subhash Yadav's 24 hour sify internet parlor).
The owners generally didn't do much except collecting rent and living their humdrum life. Some run the shops in the bylanes. But the major income is from the rents. People who were farmers once now own cars. Good for them, and their children.
Cut to today. The owners are rich. They increase rents to grow more rich, market demand and supply you know. Students pay through their noses just to have the so called 'environment' for studies. As the rents increased, coaching centeres (there are still quite a number of them for various exams) of jia sarai started to look out e.g. Ensemble moved out of jia sarai last year. Jia sarai rooms are now being occuied slowly by working bachelors as they can afford the rents (but they are migratory birds who would fly away the moment they find better place). The number of students today has drastically come down when compared to say four years before. Also the emphasis of UPSC on arts subjects took away the sheen from science subjects thus driving the students north (jia sarai was famous for science optionals in civils and north delhi for arts).
Recently the residents complained about the shops that are open all night. The owners/residents feel that the students are disturbing night's sleep as they talk aloud while taking chai/sutta. The police was called to help, which it did, by putting up a notice to close all shops by 11 PM. Now the shops close at 11PM. Students who do night outs for studies can't have the famous chai/sutta breaks. The rents are also increasing to a level where students are barely able to afford them. There are hardly any mentionable coaching institutes remaining in Jia sarai. If this continues, it would hardly take a year or two before the owners will lose actual sleep as there won't be many students to pay them regular rents. Maybe they prefer this way as atleast they can have a peaceful family lives without these bugging bachelors behaving lewdly in their backyards. Maybe it would be better if working people move in in place of these rowdy students. Atleast they sleep at night and let others sleep.
From student's point of view, there is no reason why a student should stay in jia sarai when he can do the same preparation at other places which welcomes him. The so called environment effect (from chai sutta all time and circle of friends) is wearing down. Atleast the beginning is visible. The crack is there....it only needs time to propagate..unless something changes...


Tiru