Reported and Written by

Lakshey Gangwani

2010

Maypuri: Defamed to Fame

Mayapuri: a story untold.

Country’s political capital is never short

of controversies, whether it be tweeting

junior ministers or our very own

“prophecy saying” chief minister, you

will always have a piece or two. Some of

these manage to tickle your funny bones,

and you end up cracking a joke about it.

But, with the recent mismanagement of

the Mayapuri Scrap market incident the

frowns, in the recycling industry, are

getting bigger than ever.

Recycling is a big business in

India, which imports as much as 3

million tons of scrap metal each year

from around the world. In these scrap

markets, you can find anything from a

dismantled scooter to worn out railway

bogies. Surprising, in scrap markets

along with the hulking heaps of steel,

copper, and other metals comes a

mountain of hazardous waste such as

asbestos, lead, mercury and, as it has

turned out, potentially deadly radioactive

materials. The scrap traders, operating

these markets, have no formal or

informal training or tool to determine if

there is any hazardous material

accompanying the metal scrap. Most of

them have inherited the business a part

of their family’s legacy. The scrap

business is ruled by an open out cry

system ensures that the best bid for scrap

wins. Mayapuri, Mina bazaar, and

Sundar Nagar provide a small shelter to

this 3 million ton scrap, which finds a

home in India.

In a shocking disclosure from a

Mina bazaar scrap dealer, the world

learnt about the trading of bomb shells

and other explosives in these scrap

markets. These live bombs were being

openly traded in and out of the market

almost everyday. With both the buyers

and the sellers unaware and unskilled to

realize what is being traded and what the

repercussion can be. Shockingly, the

dealer, from the Mina bazaar scrap

market, also discloses that, in the past,

explosions had taken place not only in

Mina Bazaar, but also in the Sundar

Nagar area of north-east Delhi with the

police and the administration being well

aware of these explosions. But, none of

them cared to flex a muscle to figure out

the source of these explosive materials

and their probable entry route into these

scrap markets. Moreover, he is not the

only one who is trying to ring the Alarm

bells for the administration. Even Indian

Institute of Management, Lucknow

recently conducted a study and

determined that only half of the 400,000

kilograms of hospital waste that India

generates each day is treated before its

disposal. Toxic Links1, an NGO, also

estimates that as much as 50,000 tons of

electronic waste is illegally imported

each month, bringing with it lead,

mercury, cadmium, beryllium and other

hazardous materials, while Indian

industry generates 6 million or 7 million

tons of hazardous waste per year.

With all such wastes making its

entry into these scrap markets, it was a

disaster waiting to happen, and it is only

some kind of divine blessing that a

major accident had not happened till

April 7, 2010. The day turned out to be

the perfect pooper for the Indian

recycling industry, when the reports of a

shop owner Deepak Jain and four others

being hospitalized with radiation

sickness started circulating. Each of

them being exposed to a bright and

shining metal object, being traded as

scrap. Subsequent investigations

identified the radioactive material as

Cobalt 60 — a metal used in the

sterilization of medical equipment and

for radiotherapy. It was only a matter of

1 Visit http://www.toxicslink.org/

time and 11 more sources of

radioactivity were reported in and

around the Mayapuri scrap market.

Soon, we had everyone form

Mrs. Dixit to the health minister Kiran

Walia come out yet again with a long list

of promises to ensure a screening and

treatment of the entire area and each

individual that might have come in

contact. Teams from Bhabha Atomic

Research Centre (BARC) were rushed to

the spot and all radioactive sources were

sealed to make sure that the people had

their trust back in the administration of

Delhi. The entire country had a sigh of

relief and believed that the matter was

under control. But, behind the glitzy

interviews, the truth remains far from

being told. The bottom line still remains

untouched with plans and promises no

where near to an execution. When our

team of reporters visited the Mayapuri

market on a quite Sunday evening, the

environment said it all. You could see

people, with densely wrinkled fore

heads, still confused about what had

happened. The only thing they knew was

that black nails or skin meant they were

to a part of the maledicted story. Their

expressions said it all, and so did their

words. When they needed the

administration to perform swift actions,

they were left prey to “TRP seeking”

journalists, those who convinced them

into portraying a kin to the affected, in

return of a lame promise of spreading

their words to the world. Most of these

people made their television debuts

saying, what was scripted and what

would really strike a cord with the

millions of people out there. As they

have learnt on many other occasions, the

media world can be ruthless and highly

capitalistic.

By the late evening, when all the

dust had settled and the media glitz had

died, these people were long forgotten.

This is when their agitation and

frustration resulted in the truth being

told, beyond what has been shown by the

paparazzi.

When we approached shop

number DII-32, where the first pin made

of radioactive Cobalt 60 was discovered,

we were shocked to see the shop only

being shuttered and being guarded by

just a hap hazard arrangement of stack of

Delhi Police barricades forgotten against

the wall. The arrangement was so fragile

that it could be disturbed by a few rather

careless and curious minds. People were

carelessly walking around the area, street

dogs drinking from a little pot hole right

in front of the shop. No security guards,

armed men, medical team to avoid any

accidental or deliberate catastrophe.

We had not even recovered from

the shock, when two rather skinny men

appeared on a roof covering DII-31 and

DII-32. Our team wanted to believe that

these were the personnel responsible for

protecting the area, but we had a heads

on collision with disappointment. Our

shock turned into a nightmare, when

these guys exclaimed that they have

been working as rickshaw pullers for

DII-32 for all this time and have been

living on the top of the roof for years

now. There description of the material

and casing assured us that they weren’t

lying. We were almost taken aback when

we learnt that they have been living

there, right from the day this started. No

medical attention, no screening, and no

instruction to move out from there. All

they knew were that the fingers or body

parts should not turn black. They looked

rather puzzled with the shock and awe

on our faces, may be they had already

started to believe that this incident is

over.

The conditions in Mayapuri are

rather dismay, given that this is already

turning out to be the biggest radio active

exposure in the capital’s history. The

administration still seems to be waiting

for a bigger alarm bell, and is turning a

deaf ear to all those resided in the area.

As for the people of Mayapuri, their

future remains uncertain and dark, as

there seems to be no immediate respite

for them