The dark underbelly of Delhi's economy

70 years ago, industrial areas were envisioned to usher Delhi into an age of egalitarian growth. But today, this continues to be a distant dream

- Paras Singh, Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore

On April 13, 1958, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the Okhla Industrial Area in what was then a Delhi suburb. It was dubbed India's biggest industrial estate. Nehru described industrialisation as "a revolution to achieve a welfare State as distinguished from the revolution we waged to obtain freedom". He also underlined that India would continue to be a land of paradoxes as a country which was determined to take full advantage of automation and atomic energy for peaceful reconstruction and industrialisation while allowing the "takli" (spindle) the "charkha" (spinning wheel), and the bullock cart to exist side by side.

He also called for "complete reorientation of employer-employee relations" which made sure that the former did not have to face strikes and the latter had access to all basic facilities including housing. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the Union minister for industries and commerce, said India had taken the cue from Britain and Japan who were pioneers in working industrial estates. The government, he said, would be glad to extend all the necessary facilities.

Almost seven decades later, the manufacturing landscape in Okhla and almost all of Delhi is a story which is diametrically opposite to the vision of progress and shared prosperity which Nehru spoke of that day. Days before Delhi elects a new government, there is very little hope among stakeholders in manufacturing that things will change for better.

The national capital is also the capital of low-value manufacturing in India.

The failure to give a boost to manufacturing is seen as one of the biggest reasons for low mass income levels in India.

Ironical as it sounds, official statistics show that manufacturing is a part of the (low-income) problem rather than the solution in Delhi.