PM Modi, BJP’s promises open few doors for Aligarh lock industry

ADDRESSING a rally in Aligarh earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned its famed locks as among those put on priority by the Uttar Pradesh government as part of its ‘One District, One Product (ODOP)’ initiative. “The BJP government is strengthening every industry. The small-scale industries here have also got a lot of help from Mudra Yojana,” Modi said.

In the narrow lanes of Aligarh where the lock industry and its ancillary units operate – “Yahan har ghar mein taala banta hai (Here every house makes locks)”, the saying goes – such promises are yet to trickle down.

Anis Ahmad, one of the biggest lock manufacturers here, with a unit in Shah Jamal in Old Aligarh, overrun by overflowing drains, garbage heaps and hanging overhead electric wires, says MSMEs like theirs are lagging behind. “Government policies favour only big businesses.”

However, sitting in his office at his two-floor factory, as the sound of clanging machines trickles in, the 40-year-old adds that they don’t know much else to do. “Yeh hamare khoon mein hai (Lock-making is in our blood). Every generation passes on the knowledge to the next. However, most of those employed in it are not educated, and are unorganised and very poor; they know the technique of making locks, but they do not know how to market it or to get the benefits of government policies.”

Ahmad says they are also worried about the administration’s plan to move the lock units to industrial areas like Tala Nagri, citing “violation” of norms. “How will a small unit buy land there?… Why uproots thousands of people? Yahan ek dusre ki chain fansi hui hai (People are dependent on each other here),” he says, while showing how “70 types of items” go into making a single padlock.

Mohammad