By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Delhi

The municipality is targeting over 18,000 buildings for demolitions

Double Storey Colony is a dreary, congested warren of lanes dotted with cramped homes and crisscrossed by rotting electricity lines in the heart of the Indian capital, Delhi.

This neighbourhood of dull two-storey homes was built half a century ago to house refugees from Pakistan after the partition of India.

Over the years, the Double Storey Colony literally became a four-storey one as residents added floors to accommodate growing families and outsiders looking to rent.

HS Bindra, a resident, says municipal officers and policemen coolly collected $250 in bribes from every house owner and allowed them to build additional floors and shops that encroached the sidewalks.

Urban catastrophe

The residents even began paying house tax and electricity bills on their illegal property and life went on...

... until the bulldozers and workmen belonging to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) entered the area with a posse of policemen recently and began tearing down the illegal floors.

LAWLESS DELHI There are over 3.2 million buildings in Delhi The municipality says 70-80% of them have major or minor illegalities The municipality is targeting 18,299 buildings in its demolition drive Some 1,600 of Delhi's 3,000 colonies (housing areas) are illegal

"Why did the municipality let us build? Why did they collect taxes all these years? And why are the demolishing it now?," asks an incensed Mr Bindra.

The demolition men are in his neighbourhood because Delhi's High Court has ordered the municipality to raze all illegal constructions - and by the MCD's initial reckoning that is an astounding 70-80% of all buildings in Delhi.

That would mean that the city of over 10 million people is on the brink of an urban catastrophe.

The court, however, does not believe in that figure which it said was "an attempt to create fear psychosis in the minds of honest citizens".

Privately, MCD officials stick to the figure saying that the majority of the over 3.2 million buildings in Delhi have some minor or major illegal construction work.

Double Storey Colony is a now a neighbourhood of four storey homes

For the moment, a strong rebuke by the court has prompted the municipality to launch action against 18,299 buildings in the city, that it has listed for various illegalities.

Some 900 of these buildings have faced municipal demolition squads ever since the teardown operations began on a little over a month ago.

Also, nearly 400,000 sq ft of public land has been cleared of encroachments in the same drive so far, the municipality claims.

"Delhi has to get rid of unauthorised constructions. Action has to be taken against erring officials, builders, influential and powerful people who have permitted or have indulged in unauthorised constructions," the court said recently.

"Message must go to people, who construct their dwelling units that such constructions have to be in conformity with the laws".

'Most lawless'

The 2,500-year-old city was recently voted as the country's "most lawless" city in a straw poll taken by a news channel.

The propensity to break the law with impunity is reflected most in the mushrooming of illegal buildings and wanton encroachment of public land.

The court has ordered the municipality not to spare the rich

Over time, a nexus of local politicians, private builders, municipal officials and the police have connived in allowing illegal constructions to dominate the Delhi skyline.

So much so that when I went house hunting in a Delhi neighbourhood, a real estate agent openly offered me a new apartment floor saying it was "illegal, but there would be no problem about it".

"I would sum up the present situation was one way in which serious governance has completely ceased. Everyone is to blame," says MN Buch, director of the Delhi-based TVB School of Habitat Studies.

The Delhi High Court is echoing the same sentiment and directing the municipality to raze all unauthorised buildings, even if they belong to the rich and the influential, and publish a list of illegal buildings on its website to inform the public.

The problem is that most citizens believe that the municipality, notorious for corruption and inaction, will take some half-hearted measures and wait for the din to abate before it is business as usual.

Senior officials agree that the MCD suffers from a serious image problem.

The city has seen unplanned growth for many decades

"It is perceived as a highly corrupt organisation. Years of inaction has led to such a situation," says Dr MM Kutty, additional municipal commissioner.

He says the municipality has already suspended 10 employees and launched investigations into the role of 113 others, mostly engineers, in abetting illegal constructions.

Citizens like HS Bindra are still not convinced that the rich and powerful would be punished - because it hardly happens in Delhi.

He also points to the fact that many people illegally constructed additional floors under pressure of expanding families.

Explosive growth

There is some truth is his contention.

No other Indian city faces so much pressure on land due to the massive migration of workers from all over the country who are snared by its job opportunities and attractive wages.

Delhi's population has grown from some 4 million two decades ago to 10.6 million today.

According to one estimate, 400,000 people migrate to the city every year creating intense pressure of urban and civic amenities, which have been routinely neglected by authorities.

"The availability of housing has not kept pace with the influx of the migrants," says Mr Kutty.

Also, the master city plan, say urban planners, has grossly underestimated the growth of housing and commerce in the city.

A combination of bad planning, venal officials, and citizens' need and greed have led to an explosive situation in which the future of the city looks grim.

"We do not need demolition drives. We need a steady, consistent and unerring enforcement of law," says planner MN Buch.