Jehangirpuri – A smaller Dharavi in Delhi
A recent visit to Jehangirpuri in North Delhi was enlightening in more than one way. It is a colony inhabited mostly by poor workers, consisting of unskilled and semi-skilled factory workers, security guards, auto/taxi drivers, daily wage earners, small vendors selling fruit, vegetable, meat, snacks etc. The elite population of the area includes class IV employees of Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Delhi government. There is a sizable population of motorbike riding youth, working mostly as delivery boys for ecommerce and food delivery platforms. There are numerous unregistered workshops and cottage industries running from houses built illegally. A large majority of the 1,00,000 population of this colony are immigrants from various parts of the states of UP, Bihar and West Bengal. Before 1975, Jehangirpuri was a small semi-rural habitation on the outskirts of Delhi. During the Emergency, a resettlement colony comprising a few thousand studio apartments was built here to ...