‘It was even worse when metal industry was here’

NEWDELHI: Jai Singh, a former member of Uttar Pradesh Police, has been living in Shalimar Bagh, a neighbourhood in northwest Delhi for the past 35 years. Singh guards an unoccupied plot in the Jhilmil industrial area, and has seen the locality transform from being a far-flung area hosting industries with some green cover to a residential hub with some industries.

As some of the most polluting industries have shut down in the past decade, the industrial activity has declined in the area, according to Singh.

He remembers a time when there were polluting industries on both sides of roads. He considers the poor air quality in the area these days an improvement. “Air quality was much worse till a few years ago, when polluting industries, like the metal-works units were here,” he said.

But the locality hasn’t totally shed its label as an industrial area. “This is a factory area, always has been,” Singh said. The big change is that now there are more people living here — more people also means more cars. “(Earlier) it was industries and the jungle, now the population has increased so much here and so have the vehicles,” he said.

A horizontal strip abutting GT Karnal road was carved out as a relocation space for polluting industries situated in the residential and non-conforming areas of central Delhi, in 1996.

It has taken the Delhi government two decades to allot plots to relocated industries here. There are 96 plots and 284 flatted factories here. Since the allocations

It was industries and the jungle, now the population has increased so much here and so have the vehicles.

JAI SINGH

were wrapped up only last year, the occupancy rate is low, a to senior official at the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation said.

Activists suspect that industries do not intend to move here at all, but rent out the plots for profits. While that would keep the air pollution from industries in check, the waste from unregulated use of the area is unlikely to be disposed of properly.

Singh, a native of Agra, lives here with his daughter. He hasn’t considered moving the rest of his family to Delhi. Life is better in Agra, he said, Delhi is only a place to earn a livelihood. A self-professed supporter of the Congress, Singh said he believes the current administration has done little to tackle air pollution.