Loha Mandi yet to iron out issues

New Delhi: The shifting of Loha Mandi (iron market) from Motia Khan to Naraina in 1975 shows that the authorities have to be firm with wholesale merchants when relocating them, yet simultaneously take care to provide them better amenities than they are currently used to. Undertaken though forceful means rather than collective persuasion, the Naraina shift was swift and smooth.
“Those were the days of the Emergency and the might of the state was behind Sanjay Gandhi, whose right-hand man Jagmohan had conceived of the project,” recalls 82-year-old Gopal Kishan Agarwal, one of the oldest iron traders at Naraina.
“They placed the bulldozer in front of our shops and asked us to move to the current site which then used to be a jungle.”
Almost all of Motia Khan’s 750 traders were shifted to the outskirts at one go. Agarwal remembers that most were reluctant to move, but were promised better facilities in Naraina. “We operated in tents in the initial days,” the elder merchant adds. Today, the loha mandi is a hub for more than a thousand traders. Setting up shop in Naraina successfully diverted unwanted traffic from an already crowded Sadar Paharganj.
Sunil Gupta, a 65-year-old veteran with trade experience in Motia Khan and Naraina, says that the latter was a good alternative. He chuckles and says that the authorities had to be forceful in the beginning to rouse the people out of their comfort zone, but in the long term, the traders are happy.
“Naraina is 1,000 times better,” says Gupta. “Motia Khan comprised a single street just 20-25 feet wide. Once a truck entered, it could not turn. We have wider roads here, proper electricity supply and bigger space.” Each block in the market also has a weigh bridge, a bank and a railway line close by.
It is not all paradise, however. Traders complain that the basic infrastructure has deteriorated. “The roads are damaged, there is no provision for parking of trucks or efficient drainage and sewage system,” points out Vilayati Ram, who heads the Iron Merchants’ Welfare Association and is among the few remaining iron traders who also operated from Motia Khan.
About Naraina’s shortcomings, Ram says there were some lacunae at the planning stage itself. “There is no parking for the heavy trucks that carry tonnes of metal. Loading and unloading have to be carried out on the roads, damaging them and also obstructing the movement of traffic,” he elaborates.
Ram adds that when being moved to Naraina, they were assured that there would be only one iron market in the city, but today business is carried out also at Shahdara, Trinagar and Kirtinagar. Himanshu Agarwal interjects, “If you can get the stuff you require in Shahdara, why would you spend money coming all the way to Naraina?”
The site of the earlier market in Motia Khan now houses hundreds of families. The locality has been transformed into a leafy residential area with yellow DDA flats. But even after 40 long years, the authorities haven’t solved the problem of parking there. “It is difficult to drive out in our cars in the morning,” frets Meena D’Souza. Little does she, or many other residents, realise that life could have been far worse had the iron traders not been forced to make an exodus to Naraina.