Subsistence Structure of the Industrial Agglomeration of the Urban Informal Sector in Delhi, India

Abstract

This study describes the subsistence structure of the industrial agglomeration, with examples from the textile and apparel industrial agglomeration in Jamia Nagar, located in the National Capital Region, India. After Independence, Delhi accepted migrants from poor states located in North India. However, Muslims, as a religious minority community, strengthened their residential concentration because of the intensification of religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Consequently, Jamia Nagar became one of the Muslim colonies that received numerous male migrants.

The textile and apparel workshops in Jamia Nagar are in close proximity to the wholesalers and exporters in Delhi or suburban Delhi. This enables the workshops to receive job work-style orders from wholesalers and exporters. The workshops rely on human resources supplied from rural areas, based on local kinship and/or blood connections. The native origins of the workers and owners are mainly rural areas in poor states, and owners acquire their human resources from rural areas by utilizing local kinship connections. Migrant workers, on the other hand, find jobs through their connections with the owners and/or existing workers in the workshops.

In addition, workers can establish their own workshops and become owners themselves after acquiring manufacturing skills and various types of information such as customer profiles. This enables them to contribute to the sustainable development of the agglomeration in Jamia Nagar. It is also important to point out that the costs of establishing these workshops are relatively low. The working and living environments of workers are not good, but they nevertheless earn a certain amount of money.