[in-enaction] All quiet on the Bawana front?

All quiet on the Bawana front?

Gita Dewan Verma / Planner / 07.02.03


On 04.12.02 Hindustan Times reported (on front page) on the Supreme Court
deadline of 31 December for closure of industries and the failure of the
Bawana relocation scheme to take off, predicting protests like in November
2000. I had written then to MoUD/DDA, in continuation of my letter of
01.11.02 to implore that they table in the discourse the details of about
2000 hectares of planned industrial space so that November 2000 does not
recur. I had also circulated a panicky plannerly piece, which is at the
end of this mail again.

For nearly a fortnight after that news reports had pointed to mayhem
around the court deadline. Bawana did not look like it would happen and in
any case it was way short of what was needed. While the government was
speaking of seeking an extension, it had not approached the court. It was
beginning to say all was now up to the industries. The opposition was
gleefully threatening agitation.

Then, a day before the court closed for vacation, the government started
talking of regularisation even though it could no longer legally beat the
court deadline and had not asked for an extension. In a hastily called
meeting, the proposal for 'regularisation' of industrial units in 24
residential areas was 'approved' by DDA and forwarded to the Ministry.
Such a move is arguably illegal and, promises by Delhi BJP chief
notwithstanding, on 03.02.03, the Minister has backtracked for now.

In December 2002 the 'regularisation' announcement did serve to avert a
November 2000 type situation, only because our politicians presumed that
what they had announced by consensus was law. The Court deadline came and
went, quietly. Afterwards, Delhi industries minister was reported saying
action would be taken only if the court makes a fresh order requiring
closure and being confident of the regularisation move coming through.
Delhi BJP chief took credit for averting closure, saying that the
government had moved because he had threatened agitation. And the
relocation matter was forgotten, as it has always been between court
deadlines for seven years.

All seems quiet for now on the Bawana front.

But it seems so, perhaps, only because we have become deaf - to sounds of
justice from courts of law as well as to voices of victims, such as those
dead and injured in the factory blast in the residential area of Samaipur
Badli barely a week after rampant 'regularisation' was approved. I think
the Bawana bluff will be called. No, I hope the Bawana bluff will be
called, because if it is not, governance-walas will have got away not only
with mis-governance but also with murder in the capital of the world's
largest democracy.




Impending unrest in the industries' matter
Gita Dewan Verma / Planner / 05.12.02

Yesterday HT reported (on front page) on the Supreme Court deadline of 31
December for closure of industries and the failure of the Bawana blunder
to take off, predicting protests like in November 2000. Today Pioneer has
a similar report with similar predictions. It says that, after Bawana
Industrial Welfare Association countered the claim of DSIDC that adequate
infrastructure had been provided and conditions were conducive to
relocation, High Court has appointed a Commissioner to visit Bawana and
file a report by December 17. A Zee News report last week showed
graphically that conditions are far from conducive for relocation to
Bawana. Mid-November it was reported that Delhi Finance Corporation has
backtracked on its commitment to provide loans to relocating units. Most
importantly, nearly 10 years after the Bawana blunder was conceived,
designed relocation capacity is just 16,000 units even as estimates of
units in places not meant for industries were placed at about a lakh in
2000. Of the 16,000 plots in Bawana, it seems only 8,000 have been alloted
and on only 35 of these construction has started. The probability of
protest against closure by Delhi's Congress government is extremely high
under the circumstances. And BJP's 'charge-sheet' (reported today) in
response to Delhi Government's report-card of 'achievements' (reported
yesterday) makes it a certainty, with BJP gloating in it over Congress's
failure on the industrial relocation front. Any doubts I might have had
about my plannerly analysis on account of not having benefit of either
specialised expertise about industries or insight through a client group
are put to rest by a comment posted by a unit owner on a chronicle I was
posting on a web journal. The comment, in language far more intemperate
than mine (requiring the administrators to delete it), concludes by saying
that 'people will not be scared of taking law into their hands'. The
writing, then, is on the wall. In the sickening politics of this city
citizens are headed again to become playthings in violent games that its
self-seeking politicians play to score cheap brownie points without a care
for those in whose name they do so.

In November 2000 it was politically expedient for all in the blame-game to
blame the Master Plan as anything else would have pointed to their own
failures to implement it since BJP and Congress have both been in charge
while the industries' fracas has gone on. In this round of the blame-game
BJP has cleverly figured out that the Congress can be blamed for the
failure to develop Bawana. But the Bawana blunder, like the Master Plan,
is the plump red herring in the non-debate poised to soon start. The real
issue in the matter of industries in places not meant for them is what
happened to the land within the city that was meant for industries.
Contrary to 'popular perception', deliberately promoted especially in
November 2000, the Master Plan for Delhi has adequate provisions for
planned industrial space all over the city - in the form of industrial
estates and flatted factories and also in controlled ways in commercial
and residential areas. Much of this has not been developed or has been
mis-allotted / misused. The recent attempt to regularise commercial use of
industrial plots within the city, while industrial units face closure on
grounds of unavailability of industrial land, is a clear indication of
what is really going on here.

I can easily argue that there is perhaps no need for either Bawana or
regularisation and that these 'alternatives' really amount to
short-changing industrial units and their workers on their statutory
entitlements to planned industrial space provided for in the Master Plan.
All that is needed is to implement the statutory Plan provisions for
industries in the city. Not only are the short-changing 'alternatives'
illegal, they also carry the danger of Plan provisions being down-sized in
the on-going revision, to the immense detriment of the city, not just its
industrial units and their workers. I have already written twice to MoUD
and DDA (custodians of the Plan) to not de-link the problem from its
statutory solution and to inform the Court and the debate with details of
the land meant for industries. This is especially pertinent now not only
because the Court has asked, for the first time in this prolonged matter,
about misuse of industrial space (albeit only in respect of commercial use
that was proposed to be regularised) but also because studies for the Plan
revision are underway. The events of 2000 in the matter of industries are
chronicled in my book. The events starting May 2002 are chronicled and
posted on a web journal. I have in both rounds written newspaper articles
and letters to DDA/MoUD. I do not know what else to do. I think the
following would be in the interest of the city, its industries, their
workers and planned development:
1. Just ignore the blame-game about Bawana, which is anyway an illegal and
inadequate solution
2. Do not fall 'on the rebound' for regularisation, which will only change
label of problem to solution
3. Demand details of status of planned industrial space, which are
mandatory for on-going Plan revision
4. Demand details/legal basis of 'policies', etc, for not developing
planned industrial space on priority
5. Try and introduce 3&4 into the matters being heard by the Courts
6. Most importantly, prevent the industrious from being misled into
protests that will not help them