Factory Gates-2: What’s happening at Ecotech 12, GreNo West?
It was nine in the morning. The sun was nowhere in sight, perhaps due to the north Indian winter. Factories were opening up post-Diwali (the Indian festival of lights), and blue and white-collar workers were rushing to punch their attendance cards to make their physical presence felt to earn their daily bread. Productivity comes later.
Handcart tea and tobacco vendors positioned their vehicles in the Ecotech 12 industrial cluster in Greater Noida to treat their customers. Outside one manufacturing unit, a labor contractor picked candidates from a group standing at a calling distance to provide daily bread for that day. He cannot assure a job for all. That’s fine. At least, some may get. Even the government of India could not ensure full employment. It has the unique right to print the Indian currency at will if it desires and generate jobs _ like what Lord Maynard Keynes advised the Franklin Roosevelt administration at the height of the Great Depression last century. Dig holes and fill it up to create income generation through jobs.
Ecotech 12 has more than a hundred manufacturing units housing all types of product mix: auto repair and maintenance units; sleeping mattress makers; marble tile purveyors; electric two-wheelers; industrial pumps; railway consultant; toymakers; snack machinery; electrical equipment; spice makers; Valeo, Superplum, Fidgel, BigBasket, Roto Pumps, and others.
This industrial may be hosting at least 5,000 — daily wages and full-time blue and white-collar types. More units are under construction. So far, there are chimneyed industrial units and, therefore, no concern about carbon emission challenge. Nevertheless, waste disposal is a worry. Industrial units dump their waste on the vast open space spread across a kilometer long and 200 meters wide. Besides, the residential skyscrapers on the other side of the four-lane Noida-Greater Noida Highway link the Noida suburb with Dadri ICD dump their waste on the industrial estate side.
In terms of basic infrastructure, roads inside Ecotech are being relaid. There is ample space for parking of trucks. High-end cranes for hire are on call. Several tea & tobacco vendors have pitched makeshift tents wherever possible or transact from handcarts. Or set up their business enterprises under trees outside factory gates. There are no proper eating joints. Workers must be carrying their food from home. They may step out for tea if there is no in-house canteen facility. Nothing to worry about security because a police vehicle stationed permanently inside the cluster roams.
Industrial activity is picking up going by the volume of two-wheelers parked outside several industrial units. Plus, the movement of trucks — both local and far away — affirm this assessment. Most units sport “Member of Noida Industries Association” on their gates. NIA and the Greater Noida authorities should explore avenues for the scientific disposal of waste from Ecotech. Simultaneously, the district administration should sensitize the neighboring residential towers not to dump their waste in the industrial cluster.
