NEW DELHI – Mr Pawan Kumar remains focused on his brushstrokes amid the din from the afternoon traffic that moves past him on one of Delhi’s key thoroughfares.

An artist with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the 32-year-old is finishing a picture of the Lotus Temple, one of the city’s many tourist attractions, on a wall that serves as his canvas.

Since November 2022, he has been busy sprucing up sites daily across Delhi with depictions of Indian landmarks and achievements as the city prepares for the G-20 summit on Sept 9 and 10.

The G-20 or Group of 20 is a forum for international economic cooperation and counts 19 countries and the European Union as its members. 

A mural celebrating India’s successful moon mission – Chandrayaan-3 – is another artwork he did. “I feel good making these paintings,” he said, hoping his 200-odd such works that dot Delhi will showcase the best of his country to visitors from across the world.

Mr Kumar is among a legion of foot soldiers – including artists, gardeners, sanitation staff and construction workers – who have been working for months now to ensure Delhi turns on its charm to welcome more than 10,000 G-20 leaders and delegates.

India’s capital has undergone its most extensive makeover since 2010 when it hosted the Commonwealth Games. And it is not just wall murals; an estimated 150 fountains, 100 sculptures and around 680,000 potted plants have also been installed at multiple prominent locations.

While stone-carved lions will greet delegates as they are driven from the airport to the city, an 8.5m- tall statue of Hindu deity Shiva in his dancing form will tower over them at Bharat Mandapam, a newly inaugurated convention centre that will host the summit.

But decking out and sanitising a city of more than 20 million people – notorious for its rush-hour gridlocks – has been no easy task.

Three days, beginning on Sept 8, have been declared as a holiday for all government and private offices as well as educational institutions across the city to minimise traffic. Markets and banks in the central New Delhi Police District, where the summit will be held, will also remain shut on these days, inflicting a cost on traders and daily wage workers who cannot work online.

On Aug 26, while apologising to residents for the inconvenience, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged them to put their best foot forward.

“The citizens of Delhi have more responsibility... They have to ensure that the country’s image is not dented. There will be inconvenience – just like when a lot of guests arrive at our homes. But we have to ensure that we extend as warm a welcome as possible,” he said.

But such exhortations offer little solace to street vendors and slum dwellers who have been evicted to get Delhi ready for the summit.

A vegetable briyani seller, Mr Mohan Singh Verma, 48, has struggled to earn his livelihood since July when the authorities cleared Vikas Marg – a key road that leads to the summit venue from one of the hotels where G-20 delegates will be staying – of street vendors.

“In the name of cleanliness, they want to make Delhi look like Paris by removing the poor. Where will they go?” he said.

Mr Kumar, who used to earn around 20,000 rupees (S$330) every month but has been getting by with less than 5,000 rupees since July, added: “We are eating from our savings... G-20 has been a curse for us.”

While some ply their trade furtively – operating from two-wheelers instead of bulky carts, allowing them to flee in case the authorities show up – many have chosen to return to their villages in other states.

Mr Dinesh Kumar, a street vendor who sold stuffed parathas and vegetable curries in Vikas Marg, locked up his cart in his rented room and headed to his village in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharth Nagar district in July.

“What’s the point in staying there when you are not earning?” said the 35-year-old. He has defaulted on two monthly rent payments for his accommodation in Delhi and will have to “beg” his landlord for extra time to pay up.

“It is as if lockdown has been imposed all over again,” he added during the interview over the phone. The sudden nationwide lockdown in 2020, imposed because of Covid-19, had prompted an exodus of migrant workers from Indian cities, highlighting their vulnerability and the absence of support mechanisms for such individuals.

The National Association of Street Vendors of India (Nasvi) estimates that more than 300,000 street vendors have been evicted from different parts of Delhi since July.

“The authorities had so much money and this could have been an opportunity to make the vendors more presentable,” said Ms Sangeeta Singh, head of the street food programme at Nasvi. “Rather than doing that, they chose to evict them, which is easy but also tragic, given how it has taken their livelihoods away.”

A senior MCD official, who did not wish to be quoted, said vendors from Vikas Marg had been removed to prevent overcrowding that poses a “security risk” to G-20 delegates. He added that the vendors are free to set up their carts at other locations and that a decision on their eventual return will be taken after the summit.

However, street vendors whom ST spoke with said they had been selling their food items at the same spots in Vikas Marg for more than a decade. They noted that finding a new location and customers is not easy.

India, which has the lowest per capita income among the G-20 countries, has also seen an increasing rate of eviction of slum dwellers in its capital city ahead of the summit.

Early on the morning of June 1, bulldozers working for the Delhi government’s Public Works Department demolished over 50 shacks situated beside a key road that leads to the summit venue.

The shelters belonged mostly to daily wage workers and housed more than 200 individuals, many of whom had been living there for more than a decade. The homes was cleared after an order from the High Court of Delhi in May, with the ground now being levelled for plants that will beautify the spot.

Residents of “recognised” slums in Delhi are entitled to alternative housing before demolition. In this case, however, the court declared that the cluster of homes was not part of any such slum – even though it is adjacent to a recognised one. Its residents were offered only temporary accommodation in a government shelter more than 25km away.

For the evicted daily wage workers who earn less than 500 rupees per day, this proposition is impractical and involves additional transportation costs. Many of them work nearby – including as domestic helpers – and have children who attend government schools in the neighbourhood.

Those displaced are now scattered in homes of friends, rented accommodation, and even on footpaths nearby.

“They could have put up boards and hidden us from view... but they uprooted us,” said Ms Geeta Devi, 45, a construction worker who is one of those displaced. “G-20 has brought destruction in our lives.”

Affected residents claimed they had received no support from the government and said they had been left to fend for themselves. “Those who were once earning have now been reduced to begging,” added Mr Mohammad Shamim, 44, who is also among those evicted from the cluster.

Mr Nirmal Gorana, convener of Mazdur Awas Sangharsh Samiti, a Delhi-based organisation that works to protect housing rights of the urban poor, told ST it had recorded 60 instances of slum demolitions as well as eviction notices for such housing clusters in Delhi between 2015 and 2021.

But, according to him, this rate has gone up since 2022, with 32 such demolitions displacing 103,722 individuals.

“This increase is definitely linked to the G-20 summit... We don’t want to show them that there is such poverty here and want them to believe we have got great development going on,” he said, calling for a national Housing Guarantee Act.

“India needs such an Act so that courts are more careful before ordering such evictions,” he added.