Delhi corporations target December 31 to finish factory survey

NEW DELHI: The three municipal corporations have initiated a survey of 11,972 units assumed to be running illegally in non-conforming areas. They have kept December 31 as the deadline to serve notices to all defaulters.
The details of these industries were shared by the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) in its third list issued last year.
The decision has been taken after a meeting was called by the commissioner of industries, Delhi government, on Wednesday to discuss the status report on the action taken. "At the meeting, municipalities were asked to complete the exercise of serving notices to defaulting units mentioned in DSIIDC's third list by December-end," said a senior South Delhi Municipal Corporation official.
Of the total number of units running illegally, 4,204 factories fall under SDMC areas. "We have already initiated their survey and visited 1,586 units in 98 wards. Of them, 192 units have been served notices and sealing action has been taken against 47. Presently, survey is going on in the remaining six wards," said the official.
"We plan to serve the show-cause notices to all violators by December 31 and those who failed to reply in 48 hours or continue running these factories will face sealing action," he added.
On the Supreme Court's direction, in May last year, DSIIDC shared a list of 51,837 units running illegally from non-conforming areas. Of them, details of 21,000 industries were further provided in phase I and approximately 18,000 units were targeted in phase II.
He clarified that people who are running household industries and applied for licensing with municipalities will not be targeted. "As far as other defaulters are concerned, unit owners can save their premises from sealing only by paying misuse charges and submitting an affidavit assuring no repeat of action," said an official.