NEW DELHI: The EPCA’s order to shut down four “pollution hotspots” in Wazirpur, Mundka, Narela and Bawana till December 26 did not go down well with industry bodies and factory owners. Except for steel pickling industries, which release acid fumes, most of them complained that their units are actually ‘green’ in terms of the MoEF categorization.
“I would have understood had they asked us to shut our diesel-guzzling boilers. But to say that the whole factories should be closed means even finished goods cannot be lined out for export. We would be scared that the police will book us and complain to EPCA even for that,” said Ashish Garg, Secretary of the Narela Industrial Complex.
Employment of thousands of labourers would be hit and a financial loss of crores in just the two days would be incurred, he added. While Mundka has about 400 factories or commercial units that mostly do plastic moulding and toy manufacturing, approximately 2,500 units manufacture footwear and do cable making in Narela.
Bawana has 7,000-8000 units that also manufacture footwear and have ‘Daal’ (pulses) mill. The slippers/sandal-making hubs have earned a bad reputation lately due to mass burning of rubber waste
Raghuvansh Arora, Vice President of the Apex Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Delhi), said, “In Wazirpur, shutting of the stainless steel pickling units is completely justified as they use acid and pollute groundwater, but the utensil pressing, hosiery and sanitary ware assembling units are totally non-polluting, so why should they be shut.”