How Sealing Of Borders Is Dismantling NCR

People, businesses bear brunt as Corona-wary govts disrupt seamless connect between the Capital and its satellite towns

- Gulam Jeelani and Abhishek Anand

Noida resident Sagar Shrivastava, 34, who works as a legal advisor in an insurance company in Central Delhi’s Karol Bagh, was on Tuesday not allowed entry to Delhi and stopped at the DND flyway. The police said he won’t be allowed to enter the Capital owing to orders to seal borders issued by the Delhi government. “I didn’t have an e-pass since insurance services come under essential services. Till now I was allowed to cross the border based on these documents, but today I wasn't,” said Shrivastava, who fears he might lose his job if he doesn’t turn up at work.

Shrivastava is one among tens of thousands of commuters who have either been unable to commute between Delhi and the satellite towns of Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad or are facing difficulties doing so every day – even as strict lockdown restrictions are being relaxed in the rest of the country.

This, in a way, defeats the very purpose of the creation of the National Capital Region (NCR), carved out of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in 1985 to provide better housing and seamless connectivity to those residing in and around the National Capital. Today as many as 24 districts in the three states, along with Delhi, make up the NCR which is inhabited by 4.6 crore residents. But now they face an uncertain future because even if the borders are opened up in the near future, the act of sealing lives on as a precedent.

KEJRIWAL’S ACTION