Jagmohan puts debate at rest, polluting industries should go

Jagmohan puts debate at rest, polluting industries should go
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 22: Bowing to the pressure from Delhi BJP MPs, Urban Affairs Minister Jagmohan today agreed to redefine the norms of a household industry. The move will save at least 70 per cent of the 1.25 lakh industrial units in Delhi.

But, the minister refused to amend the Masterplan of the Capital unless ``necessary''. BJP spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra, had yesterday announced that Jagmohan agreed to amend the Masterplan following Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's intervention.

Jagmohan's statement today has bought out in the open his differences with his own party MPs. All the six MPs from the Capital had approached Vajpayee yesterday and extracted an assurance that Jagmohan will be told to amend the Masterplan so as not to dislocate non-polluting industries from the Capital.

Of the 1.25 lakh industrial units functioning in the Capital, only 4,000 had been classified by the Delhi Government as polluting units. But, the chief secretary had ordered all industrial units functioning in areas marked as ``residential'' in Delhi's Masterplan, to be sealed last week sparking off massive unrest. Following Jagmohan's announcement, all units employing less than 10 workers and consuming less than 5 kilo watts of power will now be considered a household industry.

Interestingly, in his statement delivered in Rajya Sabha, Jagmohan questioned BJP MPs' demand for amending the Masterplan now, though Supreme Court has been passing orders directing State Governments in Delhi from February 1996 to December 1999, to relocate industries outside the Capital. He did not mention though that Sahib Singh Verma, presently BJP MP from Outer Delhi, was Chief Minister from 1996 to 1998.

He, however, refused to acceede to the demand that 26 residential localities having over 70 percent industrial dwelling, to be designated as industrial units. Industries from residential areas would be shifted to the demarcated industrial areas for which land has also been earmarked, the Minister said after which the entire Opposition staged a walkout saying job security of thousands of workers employed by these units had not been addressed.

The minister said if all the industries could not be accommodated in the demarcated areas, the master plan would be amended, if necessary, to acquire more area. He said the Supreme Court had been requested to give more time for relocating of industries closed under the apex court orders.

He, however, rejected the Opposition demand of wholesale amendments to the Masterplan saying it would amount to rewarding the wrong-doers and punishing the law-abiding citizen. But, Delhi Sadar MP Madan Lal Khurana, announced later that Jagmohan had agreed to change the Masterplan to let 4,000 licensed shops stay in residential colonies, to regularise various slums besides honouring the Jagdish Sagar Committee report.

Jagmohan too referred to the Sagar committee but only about its redefinition of household industry. The Government has agreed, in principle, he said, to redefine household industries in terms of recommendations made by Jagdish Sagar Committee, subject to observance of safeguards in respect of pollution norms. The owner of the industry should stay in the allotted industrial plot and the number of workers in such household industries would be prescribed.