Bawana factory was operating without license, says MCD

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation under which the firecracker factory in Bawana caught fire on Saturday, killing 17 workers trapped inside it, did not have a "working license", a senior officer said on Sunday.

The municipal corporation issues factory/trade license to these factories while the area is governed by the city government's Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC), which has developed the Bawana Industrial Area.

According to the officials, the factory was functioning "illegally", as no application seeking a license for the property was received since 2014 when an application was rejected for not having "complete formalities".

"It was only in 2014 that a person named Uma Mittal had applied online for a license, which was rejected," a senior officer said.

He added the factory had been lying shut for many years and it had recently come to the corporation's notice that it got functional around a fortnight ago.

However, the officer maintained, that the monitoring of the license and if the property is running "legally" is the domain of the regulator, which is the DSIIDC in this case.

"The factory not having a license is suspected to be either sub-let or rented out to another party. The DSIIDC is responsible to monitor the functioning and the conditions of work inside these factories, developed and regulated by them," the officer said.

However, the DSIIDC in a preliminary report on Sunday stated that "at the time of allotment, the activity mentioned at the time of allotment for this particular factory was plastic goods in an area measuring 100 square meters."

"The final reason for the tragedy will be ascertained following a complete inquiry, it has been informed that fire was reported due to an explosion of certain types of explosives/firecrackers being packed at the site," the report stated.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) chairperson, Bhure Lal last December had raised the issue of air pollution caused by industries running in Badli, Bawana, Narela and the DTU areas. Later, the EPCA had sought to know the total number of such industrial units operating in Delhi, but the Delhi Pollution Control Committee and the municipal agencies failed to respond passing the buck to one another.