Illegal factories in Delhi: the controversy, the causes, and the expected future

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ABSTRACT

In Delhi, environmental pollution has reached alarming levels. Industry is one of the most important causes. There over 100,000 mostly small unauthorised units located in residential areas: many of them highly polluting chemical, metal, asbestos, rubber, and plastic factories. Originally, these factories were established in and around urbanising villages, where the land-use regulations are less strict. Since, many of these industrialised villages have been incorporated into the city, and many slums inhabited by factory labour have mushroomed around it. Unhealthy conditions prevail where industry and residences are intermixed. Presently, the issue has ran into high controversy: the Supreme Court summoned the municipality to enforce the Delhi Master Plan, which previously was a sleeping document with little in common with reality, on removing industry from the urban areas. This has led to a slow and half-hearted effort from the government to ban the illegal industries without providing fair alternatives. This drive met stiff opposition from factory owners as well as labourers. The resulting riots even claimed lives. Meanwhile, nobody looks at the villages that are at the rural fringe of the city, facing increased unrestricted influx of factories. This neglect will cause the same undesirable mix of industrial and residential land when these villages will lie within the fast-expanding city. The authorities in Delhi will have to implement integrated policies for small-scale industry, providing enough well-serviced sites for small factories and enforce land-use zoning. This should be combined with housing for the (poor) labourer families at reasonable distance.

ESF/N-AERUS: International workshop - Leuven and Brussels, Belgium, 23-26 May 2001

N-AERUS: Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South
http://www.naerus.net