In south-west Delhi is Mayapuri, a robust industrial area, divided into two phases. Dye factories, electro-plating and painting units, automobile factories, food-processing units exist cheek-by-jowl in Mayapuri phase i, while resolute junk-dealers try to salvage all that's possible from enormous clutters in the famous flea market in Mayapuri phase ii. Tailors, roadside shopkeepers and factory workers carry out their melancholy existence in the area's slum clusters. W hat would be the quantum of industrial effluent generated in the area? Mayapuri's common effluent treatment plant (cetp), built by the Delhi State Industrial Development Committee (dsidc) in 1999, receives 4 million litres a day (mld). It should receive around 12 mld.

Such shortfalls actually bedevil all cetps in the country's National Capital Region (ncr). In May 2005, the Supreme Court took note: it directed the Environmental Pollution (prevention and control) Authority (epca)