It's eight years since the Delhi High Court ordered that markets selling hazardous and bulky goods in the Walled City should be shifted to the city’s outskirts.

Delhi’s Masterplan for 2021, and every subsequent development plan, also stressed on the need to shift the wholesale markets out of Old Delhi.

But Delhi’s civic agencies have taken little action, if any.

The Walled City houses some of Asia’s largest wholesale markets, and even civic officials accept they are a major cause of congestion and traffic chaos in the already clogged-up area. To make it worse, traders and transporters use these roads as thoroughfares, leading to movement of heavy vehicles.

The High Court order to move out the chemical market came on September 14, 1997 — after a devastating fire that started from an unauthorised chemical store at Lal Kuan market on May 31, 1997, left 57 dead and 41 others injured. Ordering that all chemical traders should shift to the new Holambi-Kalan market in North Delhi, the court imposed the cost on the traders, with a direction that their shops in Old Delhi should be sealed till they make the payment.

On ground, nothing has changed. Like earlier, Old Delhi remains home to over a thousand traders. Like earlier, the chemical market at Lal Kuan, the steel and transport market at Hauz Kazi, foodgrain market at Naya Bazaar and the spice market at Tilak Bazaar continue, triggering chaos and clutter along the way.

What MCD Says
So what stops the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) from shifting these traders? MCD Deputy Commissioner (City Zone) Vijay Singh says there are multiple reasons. He says the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has delayed providing alternative space and other required services, and also points at reluctance among the traders as well as leniency on part of the MCD.

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