Illegal industrial activities in Delhi, India
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Region: Delhi
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 landuse 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 wellserviced sites for small factories and enforce land-use zoning. This should be combined with housing for the (poor) labourer families at reasonable distance.
The issue about the relocation of industries in Delhi has lingered for a long time.
At the end of the year 2000, the Supreme Court ordered the closure and relocation of all ‘nonconforming industries’ operating in the urban area of Delhi. The attempt by the Government of
Delhi to execute this order culminated into riots. How could it have come so far? Specific spatial
developments explain this. Many of the illegal industries are located in and around urban villages.
Therefore, in this paper, the informal and sometimes illegal way of land supply in and around
villages is first highlighted. Two case studies are presented: one of the village of Gopalpur, the
other on Samaipur. The former demonstrates very typical patterns of illegal occupation of land
resulting into settlement of informal housing and factories, while the latter illustrates the extreme
environmental stress as a consequence of industrialisation. The cases show how informal housing
attracts informal industries, and visa-versa, and create an understanding about the issues on local
level. Following this, the next section focuses on the political and legal affairs around the
resettlement of industry. The paper further elucidates the expected course of future developments,
taking the lessons from the past and witnessing the current developments in the rural areas just
outside the city. It concludes with some policy suggestions. The facts and material in the case
studies is based on primary surveys conducted as a part of a larger study (Bentinck, 2000) and
another on going research by the second author. In addition, specific secondary information is
collected from Indian newspapers and other publications
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