India, June 17 -- It's been a year, but Tahir Khan, 35, still recalls the day he was handed his waiter's uniform. The job only offered Rs.12,000 a month - barely enough to scrape a living for him, his wife and two kids - but, he had no other option. "A year ago, I was let go from my previous job as a waiter at a restaurant. It paid Rs.16,000 a month. With four mouths to feed, I couldn't go without an income, so I took up whatever job I found," he said. As he was handed his uniform - a crisp white shirt with a tiny embroidered monogram, to be paired with black trousers - he was given a quick reckoner on how to greet guests: say "Good morning" to everyone he met at the start of the day; say "Enjoy your food" as he served food at the restaurant or in the 30 rooms in the four-storey structure that touted itself as a hotel. Then, on June 5, his workplace - Lemon Green B&B in Hauz Rani - was sealed as part of a wider crackdown on illegal hotels running on permissions given for six-room B&B units. The sealing was a response to a fire at another B&B in the area that left 23 dead. "How would I know the hotel was illegal? It seemed like a professional set-up to me. I needed the money. Why would I even care if it was illegal? I don't have the luxury to care about such things when I have a family of four to provide for," says Khan. After the sealing, Khan returned to his house - barely three lanes away in Hauz Rani. He navigated past a patch of garbage strewn across the floor onto a narrow flight of exposed, red-brick steps that led to his house in a neighbourhood where the concept of a "studio apartment" takes on new meaning. The "flat" - as he calls it - is a single, dimly lit room with a bed on the right and a kitchen slab (it's inadequacy doesn't warrant the use of the term counter) on the left. He has squeezed in an almirah beside the bed along with a sewing machine, where his wife is stitching clothes. The rent is Rs.5,000 a month. He doesn't know for sure if this matchbox room is in an illegal structure. "It probably is." The story of Khan, his wife and his kids finds echoes in millions of others in Delhi's nearly 1,800 unauthorised colonies -in Hauz Rani, Saidulajab, Burari, Shakur Basti, Kirari or countless others spread across the city. These areas are populated mostly by migrant workers who have come to the Capital chasing dreams. Almost all colonies are on private or agricultural land or so-called urban villages, usually without formal planning or approvals for structural or fire safety. Hauz Rani's genesis, like the people who live there, was humble. It cropped up more out of need than want: a small agricultural village around a Mughal-era bath, sitting in the uncomfortable zone where the working-class' demand for land comes from proximity to upscale neighbourhoods such as Saket. In the early 2010s, the area also started catering to a specific but desperate clientele; its proximity to a large private hospital created lucrative demand for short-term accommodation for people - often foreigners, but also Indians - who needed a place to stay while their relatives received treatment. On the morning of June 3, a fire broke out at Flourish Stay B&B. The establishment had permission for only six rooms but was operating at least 26 across four storeys, a basement, and the roof, along with a restaurant on the ground floor. There was no fire exit. The front facade was covered with toughened glass. In total, 23 people died in the blaze. Almost all victims were there either for treatment, or were visiting a loved one who was getting treated, like the Agrawal family from Gurugram, eight of whose members perished in the fire, while the patriarch was being treated in the hospital. He too died on June 8. "Over the years, many property owners converted houses into B&Bs and guest houses, several of which gradually began functioning like full-fledged hotels," said Mohammed Wasim, a resident. The Delhi government's B&B policy was the easiest way to establish a hotel here, with one deviation: build 20-plus rooms instead of the six approved, run a full-fledged restaurant without permission, and keep adding floors to an already illegal building. That's the model Flourish's owner adopted, and it is likely he knew how to get around regulations, or at least knew people who knew how. No government or Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) employee has been arrested for the fire; a 65-year-old cook has. An MCD spokesperson refused comment, however a senior MCD official said that the health inspector of the area has been sacked and show cause notices have been issued to five officials....