New town planning regulations or new enforcement of old ones- no one is quite sure which – have driven businesses from basements all over Delhi. Commercial activity in basements in most areas has been declared illegal and those who flout the rules may have their workplaces sealed with all the stock inside. A month ago, throughout our district of Lajpat, people were emerging from their basement workshops and showrooms and scurrying around trying to find new premises with an increasing air of desperation.
Some like us, were lucky, and found a perch. The others have left in cars, autos and tempos with their stock, machines and workers to set up again in Delhi’s outskirts. More than 5000 people quit the neighbourhood over a space of two weeks. Suddenly it was quiet, the roads no longer choked with traffic, the chai and samosa sellers idle. Photocopy shops, printers and stationers that served local businesses are feeling the pinch and will soon be gone too.
The local economy, never robust, is unravelling before our eyes. Basements are now illegal so the ground floor shops that have been authorised are charging huge rents that many cannot afford. With the loss of so many people from the district, takings in all local shops are substantially down. To add to the misery, the closure of basement storage facilities means that the chemists and grocers can’t store extra goods close at hand.
Before the trouble began you would go to our tiny pharmacist and ask for some medicine or other. If he didn’t have it on his shelves he would send a boy to the “go-down” a couple of blocks away to fetch extra supplies. Now he can’t do that. Instead, he will ask you to wait a couple of days for stock to come in from the outermost parts of Delhi. In the worst case supplies have to come in from one of the states bordering the capital and be subject to interstate taxes, adding to the cost of daily living.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: basements, local economy, sealing
