Business Standard blogger Dhruv Munjal highlights the growing concerns of expats living in New Delhi, and says that many are leaving “prompted by the city’s dangerously high levels of toxic air, economic slowdown, incidents of crime and abysmal public health.”
“…It came out in the open in May when The New York Times’ Delhi-based South Asia correspondent, Gardiner Harris, wrote a scathing piece on the city’s pollution that had forced him and his family to leave. His eight-year-old son’s asthma, he wrote, was aggravated so severely by Delhi’s putrid air that his lung capacity had fallen to less than half by the time he decided to head back home. Harris’ account, though some found it exaggerated, was jarring and chilling at the same time. It was bound to create ripples in Delhi’s expat circles. And it did. In fact, according to a correspondent of a foreign newspaper working here, pollution is the first thing that is discussed at all expat dinners – before the monuments, food, scandals and nightlife.”
Munjal explains that the “ecosystem that had developed around the expat community now seems to be falling apart,” noting that enrollment at the American Embassy School is down; Delhi’s real estate market is in a slump whereby “a large number of housing units lie untouched in areas such as Vasant Vihar, Shanti Niketan and Anand Niketan — localities that were once swarmed by the expat population; and businesses usually frequented by expats are now very quiet. He believes and concludes that “Delhi has a problem on its hands.” The Business Standard. Read it on delhiair.org.
Expats increasingly find Delhi unlivable
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