NEW DELHI: Start work at 3 am while the city still sleeps, and the ice cuts my fingers till they bleed, but I have mouths to feed,” says Imran, hoisting a crate of mullet at Ghazipur Fish Market. For twelve years the wiry labourer from West Bengal has lived by the whistle of refrigerated lorries and the smell of offal.
Each dawn he earns between Rs 500 and Rs 2,500 hauling fish from trucks to auction tables. After paying for a shared room and cheap food, he wires home about Rs 20,000 a month.
“If I stop, the children stop eating,” he shrugs. Imran’s ordeal is echoed by hundreds across the market. Ghazipur, shifted from Jama Masjid in 2000, is now Delhi’s seafood artery, nearly 300 wholesalers and 1,500 labourers handle 200 tonnes daily from the coast.
Restaurants would starve without them, yet these men stand ankle deep in melt water with no gloves, boots or medical cover. When COVID 19 shut the gates in 2020, Imran pawned his phone and hitch hiked home, surviving on boiled leaves. Debt soon dragged him back. It is a cycle that traps the poorest in the dirtiest jobs.
Traders see growth
“This market is 1000 times better than Jama Masjid,” says wholesaler Riaz, whose turnover tops Rs 40 lakh a day.
“We businessmen must take responsibility for maintaining cleanliness. It’s not just the government’s duty; we should allocate resources for cleaning and train our workers accordingly,” he says.
Hazards are everywhere. Doctors at a nearby hospital treat workers for foot fungus, infections and slipped discs. None of the men carry insurance. Long exposure to ice maims spines before forty. Cash only trade hides another cost. Rajesh, a customer from Kaushambi, waves notes and mutters about tax evasion.
Vendors blame damp air for failing card machines, but suspicion lingers: an untaxed economy thrives while revenue leaks away.
Waste is impossible to ignore
Plastic sheets, fish guts and Styrofoam boxes clog the open drain beside the sheds. Kites and crows circle; stray dogs tear at scraps. During lockdown, when waste vanished, vets recorded a spike in bird deaths, proof that even wildlife is chained to Ghazipur’s fortunes. A pair of waterproof boots costs Rs 900.
Last year Ghazipur’s turnover topped Rs 1,200 crore. Regulation is thin. The market committee employs four cleaners for the entire fish section; their hoses clog within hours.
A single sign urging hygiene has peeled to blank tin. In 2018 the Delhi government announced a Rs 150 crore upgrade with cold stores, mechanised waste pits and a welfare centre. Seven years on, the plan is still stuck in tenders, and the only new structure is a half built shed now sheltering strays.
Mohammed Salim, who heads an informal workers’ committee, fumes: “We carry Delhi’s fish economy, yet on paper we don’t exist.” New labour codes require contractors to provide safety gear and insurance, but enforcement officers rarely cross the slimy threshold.
Activists say fixes are cheap, protective gear, a sewage plant, digital payment points, a clinic open after hours. The cost, they insist, is a fraction of the cess collected every dawn. Imran’s shift begins with unloading, 40 kgs baskets of ribbon fish, seer and prawns hurled from the lorry to the slick concrete.
By 5 am the auction bell clangs and he darts between traders, negotiating puddles that hide shards of ice. Breakfast is a five rupee tea and a dry bun. By noon, when the sheds turn into ovens, the remaining fish is boxed for evening retail; hoses flush the floor, emptying straight into the open drain.
Physical strain piles up yearly
A recent Health Watch survey logged average hearing loss of 15 decibels among workers exposed to generator noise, plus dangerous ammonia levels around ice plants.
A separate bay announced in 2018 is still a sketch in a dusty file, say the workers.