THE complaints kept pouring in. For the past few months, residents of Siraspur village in North Delhi had badgered the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) about noxious fumes emanating from illegal cottage lead smelters in their locality. A CPCB team paid a "surprise visit" to the area on May 2, only to find the premises deserted and the shutters up.

The flop of the "surprise checks" is only part of a larger problem. The burgeoning number of industries -- with 2,500 fresh units coming up every year -- in residential and commercial areas is turning Delhi into a giant gas chamber. And to counter the threat, the policymakers are nursing only one remedy: shifting the polluters out of Delhi's precincts.

Back in 1961, Delhi's first master plan envisaged the city as a no-pollution zone. By 1994, however, it became the one of the 10 most polluted urban centres in the world. In 1992, nearly 2,200 tonnes of pollutants were discharged into the Capitals' skies everyday, of which industries accounted for almost 25 per cent.

Says Ashish Kothari of Kalpvriksh, "Delhi is heading for an environmental disaster of a massive scale. Every time the issue of air pollution comes up, the bogey of shifting industries is brought up. Soon, everyone forgets about it and enterprising people quietly start fresh units."

Lapsed deadline
To clean up the city, the 1990 National Capital Region (NCR) master plan for Delhi stipulated a 3-year deadline for shifting out polluting industries. The deadline lapsed in August 1993, without any action taken.

The only notable achievement came in April 1994, when the NCR Planning Board, under the chairpersonship of the chief secretary of Delhi, was constituted to coordinate the shifting out of industries. But, by then, the number of industries had jumped from 81,000 in 1990 to 93,000 in 1994.

State sops
Thereafter, much to the chagrin of environmentalists and the surprise of many, the Delhi government followed up by announcing sops like ad-hoc licences to several unauthorised industries.

The total number of factories today -- most of them in the small-scale sector -- is close to 93,000 and only about 10,000 have environmental clearance from Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). Only 31,000 units operate with licences from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. About 70 per cent of the factories operate outside specified industrial locations, called, with bland bureaucratic seriousness, "non-conforming areas".

A recent report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) prepared for CPCB states clearly that emissions from a significant number of factories are hazardous and noxious. According to CPCB sources, about 30,000 units belch out deadly poisons like lead, sodium, sulphur dioxide and ammonia, among others.

According to the CII study, there are 81,500 units in 35 non-confirming industrial areas and 22 critically polluted industrial estates in the Capital. The list of non-conforming areas includes the Connaught Place area and the densely populated areas like Trinagar, Anand Parbat, Shadipur, Daryaganj, Azad Market, Shahdara, Nand Nagari, Kalkaji, Sagarpur and Karol Bagh. The study does not include hundreds of shoestring budget units in the meandering lanes of East, Old, West and Central Delhi.

Not only are there several illegal factories, a sizeable number also use highly polluting elements like rubber and poor quality hydrocarbons as fuels to cut costs. Says B Sengupta, a senior scientist with CPCB, "There are 27 arc furnaces in the city, some of which use refuse rubber as fuel. There are units which derive lead and copper from used batteries and wires. Then there are scores of secondary plastic units which get used plastic bags from ragpickers and make new ones after melting them. The furnaces, plastic units and smelters emit iron dust, zinc and lead into the air."

Delhi is a magnet for industries: it is well-connected by road, the electricity supply is less erratic than many areas in the country, and raw material is readily available. New industrial areas have not only come up within the city limits, but several residential and commercial sites are also being used for industrial purposes because of poor and careless urban planning and enforcement. Expanding industrial activity automatically means more transportation and ancillary needs.

Talk of shifting polluting units is old hat. Every now and then, the ministry of environment and forests issues notifications to the Delhi Administration, asking it to remove the polluting industries, seemingly oblivious of the political machinations and the slow wheels within wheels of the bureaucracy.

As Kothari asserts, instead of addressing these "superficial symptoms", a fundamental, holistic view of Delhi's developmental problems should be considered carefully.

Hanging fire
Iqbal Malik of Shrishti concurs, "The number of industrial units in the 'pollution-free city' has gone up by more than 150 per cent between 1975 and 1994. The issue of shifting was raised around 20 years ago and is still hanging fire. The political will for such a step is lacking."

Former minister of state for environment and forests Maneka Gandhi told Down To Earth, "The apathy of the government and the administration...can be gauged by the fact that till now, there is no complete survey of the existence of industries in the nooks and crannies of the city. How can shifting be initiated when one does not know who they are and what they do?"

Delhi assembly opposition leader and former Delhi chief executive councillor Jag Parvesh Chandra says, "Nobody cares about Delhi's decay and degradation. Nobody has taken the issue seriously." His sense of anguish is apparent, "Delhi is the mistress of many but the beloved of none. There is an abject lack of political will concerning de-polluting Delhi."

In 1990, as minister of state for environment and forests, Maneka Gandhi had initiated a door-to-door survey of factories in the city. About 8,000 such establishments were surveyed and between 5,000 and 6,000 were served notices to seek environmental consent. But when the Samajwadi Janata Party government fell, the Congress government promptly shelved the project.

No coercion
Earlier, one form of coercion used by the regulatory bodies was disconnecting electricity to factories that violated pollution norms. But this measure was taken away with the Delhi government having decided that, in principle, such action not be allowed. Explains Delhi industry minister Harsharan Singh Balli, "No new industries have been set up in Delhi after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took over. Why should we punish those that already exist? We will not cut off their electricity as it is the labourers who suffer."

Another former chief executive councillor, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who is now a BJP Rajya Sabha MP, says that during his tenure (1967-72), all industries in non-conforming areas were provided alternative, specially developed land at reserved prices. The industries were rehabilitated there, but the land they vacated was not acquired by the authorities. Subsequently, the proprietors set up other units on them. "Not only did they have 2 sites, they also had the alternative land, which was sold to them at prices ranging between Rs 200 and Rs 300 per square metre, worth Rs 20,000 now. In addition, we had given them larger plots than what they originally owned."

But is the relocation plan workable? A former chief secretary of Delhi, who prefers anonymity, is pessimistic. "Now there is an elected government in office, with representatives nearer to the grassroots who obviously feel that they won't derive political mileage from shifting industries," he says.

This feeling is echoed by I K Kapila, an environmental engineer of DPCC: "Even if one tries to remove the units, the courts can be brought into the picture. I have seen many instances in which the courts claim that a unit cannot be removed because it has been around for a long time."

Says N B Mathur, deputy director CII (northern India), "It is not an easy task because even the industrial estates are highly polluted. How can more than 70,000 factories or industrial estates be shifted?"

Bhajan Mongia, a small-scale unit owner in Karol Bagh, says, "If my unit is shifted to a far-flung area, the economics would force me out of business and that goes for almost all the legal or illegal small-scale units which face prospects of shifting."

The shifting programme has been stalled mainly due to the lack of land and infrastructure in the NCR. According to the 1990 master plan, polluting industries were to be shifted to areas adjoining Delhi, which fall in the neighbouring states of Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. However, the planners did not anticipate the stubborn attitude of the state governments.

A former senior bureaucrat of Delhi says the state governments demanded facilities like roads, power and water supply on par with the Capital in exchange for land. In addition, he says, the principal demand was that the expenditure incurred in land development for the purpose of shifting industries should be underwritten by the Union government. With the lack of agreement in this matter, the government is unwilling to go ahead with the shifting plan.

Stalemate
The former chief secretary, however, feels the stalemate will continue because industries would not want to increase overheads by moving out of the Capital. In addition, there are variable rates of sales tax within the NCR states and with the Delhi government emphasising further reduction in the tax and even contemplating abolishing it, the Capital has become a promised land for industrialists. The official says, "Instead of welcoming the flight of industry, this government is actually encouraging it to come in larger numbers."

The land requirements are to be sorted out during periodic meets of the NCR planning board, which held its first discussion in late April. Says Delhi chief secretary P P Chauhan, "It is very easy to set time limits, but we can't just ask the industries to go and sit in Haryana. We have to first get cracking on developing infrastructure and transportation facilities in these satellite localities."

Says Balli, "As long as there is no land in hand, we cannot do anything." Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Janata Dal general secretary and Delhi MLA, says, "Ultimately, nobody wants to take the responsibility. Nobody wants to take pains. And they (the industrialists) form such a strong lobby, that there is little political will to want to implement such measures."

The industries do enjoy considerable clout. Over the years, either politicians have started industrial ventures or businessmen have joined politics.

The golden goose
Industries account for almost 1/3rd of the city's revenue. Between 1987-88 and 1991, investment in industry leaped from Rs 1,420 crore to Rs 1,659 crore and production increased from Rs 3,850 crore to Rs 4,462 crore. The Capital is also a major employment centre, with recruitments in industry increasing from 657,000 in 1987- 88 to 765,000 in 1991.

It is hardly surprising that politicians and bureaucrats view industry as a golden goose. As Balli says, "We want more industries in Delhi. We will welcome non-polluting units which consume less power. They will generate employment. There are more than 900,000 unemployed people."

Balli says a new industrial policy for the city will be drawn up by a committee to be constituted in June. Meanwhile, he asserts, industries established before December 31, 1993 will be given ad hoc licences: "They are already functioning and using electricity. We might as well register them."

Says Sengupta, "Industrial pollution can be reduced considerably by using proper fuels. We have moved a proposal for better quality fuels. The development of pollution prevention technology for small-scale industries is also required."

S Venugopal, senior environmental engineer with CPCB, adds, "There is no detailed inventory of the number of units, people employed or the nature of production. This is one thing that should be done at the earliest." Kapila, on the other hand, claims, "The task before us is onerous. There are more than 90,000 industries and we have just 30 employees."

Argues Malik, "The idea of shifting without elements of pollution control is based on the assumption that people living in the area to which industries would be shifted do not deserve fresh air."

The government itself is now concentrating on diverting attention from the relocation issue. As Balli says, "We are telling them (the industries) about remedies like using pollution control devices and treatment plants."

Vast gap
But there is a vast gap between telling them and telling them off. And the government is definitely more attuned to giving industry the kid-glove treatment. For the moment, industry is hardly worried. They are lobbying for consideration of other options.

Although Mathur of CII agrees that decongestion is required, he feels that incentives will have to be provided to industries -- eliminating direct taxes on capital gains from sale of land vacated in Delhi. Reena Dayal, secretary to the Delhi committee of the Punjab, Haryana and Delhi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI), says the PHDCCI supports a package for the industries which are asked to move out (if ever), including land at concessional rates and land in excess to their Delhi holdings for expansion and modernisation. Finally, she says that it has to be determined which industries are really "obnoxious or polluting or hazardous". It is clear enough that relocating polluting industries out of Delhi will be far from a simple task.