Many of Delhi’s Socio-Economic Problems have stemmed from the fact that it has been a capital first and a city later. This is now changing. Apart from the rapid expansion of the city’s area and population, there has been much qualitative change. A city primarily concerned with governance has begun to think of other things such as human skills, industry, agriculture, trade, research and education.
At the time of independence, there were only a few factories on the periphery of Delhi and the construction of big factories except in small industrial area from the city is, thank God, still banned.
But industry, especially small industry, has made a big leap forward in and around Delhi. To give one example, the Union Territory of Delhi, an euphemism indeed for the city and its environment, makes nearly forty percept of the country’s radio’ sets, transistors and amplifiers, TV sets and allied equipment. The umber of all industrial units to come up after independence exceeds 5,000. The increase in the inter-state trade, to say nothing of export trade, handled by Delhi is even more impressive. The boom in the export as well as in local sales of handicrafts, handlooms and similar goods, pioneered by the Cottage industries Emporium, has been phenomenal.
If commerce has flourished so has culture under the auspices of various Academies. Higher and technical education has been expanding as fast as industry. Almost all the leading painters of the country have found it worth their while to migrate to Delhi; most of them have done very well by decorating, with murals or otherwise, the proliferating public and private buildings.
Over a period of time this is bound to have a great impact on the character and the quality of life in Delhi. For the present, however, the city continues to be hag-ridden by bureaucratic dominance which must include the temporary supremacy of the politician for the time being in power.
As the seat of a government passionately dedicated to centralized control of economy, presided over by a narcissist establishment, Delhi remains primarily a factory for the manufacture of blueprints and the most important place of pilgrimage for all those seeking important, export and industrial licenses, P forms, and sundry other permits, contracts and quotas –seemingly insignificant pieces o0f paper which are in reality an effective key to quick money and economic power.
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