DNA In-Depth: Delhi is trapped in unsafe hubs of illegal factories

Faizan and Sehmat, like thousands of young men, travelled to Delhi to earn a living. But, the dream of pulling out their families from abject poverty was short-lived for the duo from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.

They were killed in a fire at an illegally-run cloth manufacturing unit in east Delhi's Gandhi Nagar in Shahdara last month.

The factory was housed in a four-storey building located in the middle of a cramped lane in the area.

Here, almost every house has such illegally-run units. Locals say there are around 5,500 of these without any escape mechanism in case of emergencies.

Since the beginning of this year, seven major fires broke out in such illegally-run units in the Capital, killing at least 28 labourers. Six fires claimed casualties and four broke out in April alone.

The most recent one was the 18 hour-long blaze in South Delhi's Malviya Nagar in an illegally-run rubber warehouse. Although there were no casualties, the residents were gripped by panic. Most of them spent the night outdoors, fearing the spread of fire.

"The incident was bound to happen as no one keeps a check on these illegal godowns in residential areas. Our complaints always go unanswered," said Sunny Girhotra, a resident of Malviya Nagar.

Authorities' apathy

Since the accident on April 23, police officers and officials from various government departments like the labour department and the municipal corporation have visited the spot only once. The police haven't been able to determine the cause of the fire yet.

The two rooms on the second floor have been refurbished partially and are being readied to be given on rent again.

When DNA visited the spot, two men had arrived to inspect the floor. They wanted to rent the floor and set up their garments manufacturing unit.

Kishore Aggarwal, 68, the owner of the building, hoped that the floor could go on rent again and is not jinxed after the workers' death.

"They saved our lives that night. Had they not knocked on our door repeatedly to inform us of the fire, six of us would have been dead too. However, by the time we came out, the fire had engulfed them at the stairs itself. We ran to the back door where some locals rescued us with the help of a make-shift ladder," said Aggarwal, who lives in the building with his wife and three sons.

That night, Aggarwal, his wife, three sons and a daughter-in-law were sleeping in the room on the third floor when the massive fire broke out.

According to locals, Faizan, 22, and Sehmat, 30, had tried their best to escape, but since both the doors — the main gate and that of the terrace — were locked, they were caught in the fire, crying for help.

"Both, the owners of the factory as well as the building, locked all gates fearing theft. The two workers used to live on the second floor of the building. One of the rooms on the floor was stuffed with cloth packages," said Manish Aggarwal who lives in the neighbourhood.

"We heard their cries but till the time we reached they had been charred to death. The fire occurred around 11.50 pm and we reached there around 12 am. However, the fire tenders, along with the police reached half an hour later," he added.

Estimates show that there are over a lakh such units across Delhi. While many such stories of workers getting trapped and dying in dark and deathly manufacturing units have gone untold, many more are in making.

The building owner, Kishore Aggarwal, who moved to Gandhi Nagar to make a living in the 1980s, said that this place was once a residential complex. However, 80 per cent of it has now become commercial, with cloth and jeans material manufacturing units functioning in every other corner.

The alleys are cramped, dirty and jumbled with a peculiar sound of sewing machines playing in the background. It is hard to imagine that such narrow lanes house four-storeyed buildings adjoining one another.

None of the buildings has proper windows or enough ventilation. The basic norms of running a factory, including emergency fire egress and fire-fighting equipment, are blatantly breached.

"The manufacturing work started here in 1970s after those selling ready-made clothes on patri (street) near the Red Fort moved out and built their houses here. They started the business of making garments from home, which grew into factories and later into a manufacturing hub," said Aggarwal who is also addressed as 'pehelwan' in the area. Aggarwal was a popular wrestler.

Till around 1995, he said, it was more of an export hub, when some big factories hired workers here and manufactured bulk orders.

Later, most of those establishments moved to industrial areas such as Okhla, and in their place, small-time manufacturers started settling.

"At present, most of the manufactured cloth, in particular jeans, is sold at Tank Road, which is a big wholesale market. The owners take floors on rent and hire workers, most of who are from the Muslim community," he said.

The workers, hailing mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Jammu, claim that although initially they are paid very less but later, they are able to make enough to feed their families back home.
23-year-old Shafiq, who came to the city last year from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, said earlier he was paid just Rs 700 a week, but now earns Rs 7,000 in a just a fortnight.

"One of my relatives asked me to come to Delhi for work. He has been working here for many years and is now able to send his children to school. I make enough money now to save and send home. It is difficult to live here in small rooms, which have very less ventilation and are mostly stacked with cloth. Sometimes, one is not able to breathe, but when you get the money at the end of the day, it is all fine," said Shafiq, moving back to his sewing chair to ready another denim shirt.

Another worker, Fahim from Jammu, said, "The recent incident of two workers being charred to death in a factory fire was unfortunate. I had met them at the tea stall sometimes. I cannot imagine not seeing them again. Such accidents are possible here since entry doors are always locked, even if someone is dying of suffocation inside."

The old-time residents of the area said that Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely, who was the legislator from the area, had proposed to officially convert the area into a "commercial centre" from its residential status.

However, despite many visits, including a visit from former chief minister Sheila Dikshit's, nothing has changed here. Instead, the number of manufacturing units has gone up.

Prahlad Jain runs a jeans manufacturing factory in a four-storeyed building located in another obscure corner. He said that no one here has a licence to run these units.

Flouting the law

"Everything is running without any government status or rules. None of the 5,000 to 6,000 factory units in the area have licences. Even those who applied for one had to suffer huge losses as their units were raided. At times, officials of the fire department and civic bodies do come here for inspection, which is mostly after a tragedy. However, we have fire extinguishing cylinders in case of an emergency," said Jain.

All these units exist in extremely small premises, which are mostly stuffed with goods, not allowing any ventilation into the room. Most of the buildings do not have a sanction plan and have illegally added a third or a fourth floor to the already existing structure.

Passing the buck

According to the municipal corporation officials, most of these unregulated industry hubs have emerged in low-middle class residential areas, unauthourised colonies and slum clusters.

"These manufacturing hubs are not a part of the conforming industrial areas and hence do not follow labour laws or fire-safety norms. The area in which such units are built is too small for installing over 10 machines. On top of that, the workers also sleep inside," said a senior official on the condition of anonymity.

The practice, he said, of inspection by municipal inspectors in such non-conforming areas has been abolished in a bid to end 'inspector raj'.

Corporation officials can inspect and issue notices to such units based on complaints only.

Also, the multiplicity of departments like Delhi government's labour department, revenue department, and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and others make it difficult to manage the responsibility of monitoring and controlling such illegal activities.

When menace spreads

Many such non-conforming areas include Gandhi Nagar, Shiv Vihar, Tughlaqabad, Inderlok, Shahpur Jat, Pul Prahladpur, Panchari Place, Sultanpuri and Uttam Nagar, among others.

The government had attempted to relocate many such unregulated factory hubs by developing new industrial areas such as the ones in Bawana and Narela where plots were allotted to applicants. However, most of the plots have now been given up on rent "illegally" while they continue to run their businesses outside.

After a number of residents complained of noise and air pollution, the three municipal corporations in the city — North, East and South — issued closure notices and also sealed some units. The move was prompted by the recent case of fire engulfing an illegally-run factory in Bawana Industrial Area. 17 workers were killed in the fire earlier this year.

In addition to this incident, these closure notices can be seen as a response to Shiv Vihar being termed as a 'cancer colony'. Every other house in Shiv Vihar has a person suffering from cancer because of the innumerable jeans dyeing factory units in the vicinity which are polluting the area.

In the case of Bawana factory fire, too, workers were locked inside and left to die.

"In a recent survey conducted in Tughlaqabad, which is majorly a residential area, we have identified around 90 units, which are functioning illegally. We have issued closure notices to these units and have planned a sealing action on June 26 in the area," said a senior civic body official.

Until this year, the official said, the owners would shift to different places and get industrial electricity and water connections after being issued notices by the civic body for the previous manufacturing unit. 

However, since the menace kept growing, the civic body filed a plea in the Delhi High Court in February, saying that without a NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the MCD, power discoms and water utility should not be provided connections to these manufacturing units.

Also, a March 25 order of the Delhi High Court has now made it mandatory that no factory licenses will be issued without an approval from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).

"It will now be difficult for such units to move to other places, as they will have to apply to the respective MCD for a NOC in order to get electricity and water connections. Also, we plan to conduct our next survey units in Shahpur Jat," the official said.

However, the drives are still no guarantee to many lives at stake in these poorly-ventilated factory holes in the Capital.

FACTORY FIRES OF 2018

January 20  17 workers were killed in a fire that broke out in an illegally running firecracker unit in the Bawana Industrial Area. Of these, nine who died were women  

February 10  One worker died after a cloth manufacturing unit caught fire in Karol Bagh

April 7  Two labourers were killed in a fire that broke out in a footwear manufacturing unit at Narela Industrial Area

April 9  Four workers, of which two were minors, died in a blaze that occurred in an illegally-run shoe manufacturing unit in Sultanpuri  

April 17  Two workers were killed in a fire at a utensils factory in Nawada

April 23  Two workers killed in a fire at a cloth manufacturing unit in Gandhi Nagar

May 29  A massive fire broke out at an illegal rubber factory in Malviya Nagar. The fire could not be doused by fire tenders and Indian Army choppers were called in for help next morning