Maharashtra Day provides stark reminder of Thane's waning industrial sheen

THANE: Prasad Shinde was born and grew up in Thane, a city with a distinct character and culture, where the hooting of sirens of the industrial units around his home was an indication of time. Today, he feels out of place in the same neighbourhood which has transformed from an industrial hub into a crowded city with high-rises, malls and swanky cars. Thane was once the manufacturing backbone of Maharashtra, with giant multinational firms, including United Engineering, Altech polymers, Colour Chem, Voltas, Kores, to name a few, having bases here. The Trans Thane Creek (TTC) stated to be nation's biggest industrial township, is now a site of abandoned factories riddled with broken windows and cluster of illegally-built chawls and slums.Most of the industrial land has been converted to accommodate the great Indian middle class who migrated from Mumbai where realty prices touched the sky. The city of employment is now a dormitory town for the lakhs of families working in Mumbai, coming home only to sleep.“In the last 20 years, more than 100 heavy industries have shut down rendering over 20,000 people jobless. Of this, only 6,018 people got their dues of Rs 88 crore, while the remaining 14,000 are still fighting in labour and industrial courts,'' a labour official said.Shinde said the new Thane of today is a different city and has nothing in common with the old Thane, including the culture, people, education, income and outlook.Shift of the heavy industries outside Maharashtra and the escalating realty costs resulted in the closure of more than 100 industries spread over 2 lakh square metres here in the lake city in the last close to two decades, according to information by the state industries department.Much of the manufacturing work has shifted base outside Maharashtra or simply preferred to close down, stating that it was financially unfeasible to run the mammoth industry with a huge labour force. More recently, Raymond Ltd, Piramal Health Care at Kolshet and Hindalco at Kalwa shut shop after over 50 years of doing business in Thane.Though the small scale sector and the service industry seem to have replaced the heavy and manufacturing sector, the quality of employment has taken a serious beating. The IT parks and BPO industry have replaced the heavy machinery and chemical plants. In fact, statistics compiled by the industries department indicate that though there has been a slight increase in the industrial set-up in the district, the total investments in plant and machinery has fallen drastically, indicting that the joblessness chart could be on the upswing.