Capital's Illicit Mask Factories Unmasked!

Underground units milk the Corona scare, flood Delhi with cheap, substandard masks made in dangerously unhygienic conditions

- Md. Hizbullah and Nitin Jain

As worried citizens scramble for facial protection to ward off COVID-19, an underground market of substandard surgical masks has flourished overnight in the National Capital and its neighbourhoods, an India Today TV investigation has found.

The supplies, the probe discovered, are produced in extremely unhygienic and unsafe conditions, rendering them vulnerable to infection.

Health experts world over have warned that COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets and also possibly through surfaces and objects that have the virus on them.

Following a tip, India Today TV's undercover reporters walked through the narrow broken lanes of Karawal Nagar in North-East Delhi leading to a cramped house.

POUCHES BECOME MASKS

Inside, they met Dilip Kumar Rai, who till recently had been making pouches for water taps. But as the demand for masks shot up, he started producing them from the same material.

Rai told India Today TV's Special Investigation Team that he outsourced production to residents in his neighbourhood.