Where's Bhiwadi?

If you are a resident of Bhiwadi, it must be very common for you to hear- "Where's Bhiwadi? Where do you exactly live? I never heard of it." As a consequence of its location and size, it is valid for people to not know about it. Bhiwadi is a little city on the borders of Haryana and Rajasthan. Geographically lying inside of Rajasthan, in the district of Alwar. Because of this intricate location, it has always struggled to find its own identity (Rajasthan or Haryana?).

Location of Bhiwadi with context to state boundaries and New Delhi-Jaipur

While Bhiwadi was predominantly an agrarian settlement, in the past two decades it has rapidly been industrialised after the regional plan Delhi NCR came out. It is now home to more than 3000 industries and many more are being constructed every year. As industries increase the number of employment opportunities, Bhiwadi is rapidly growing in terms of settlement and commerce. Soon, it will be known as 'Greater Bhiwadi'. Everything seems good-going for Bhiwadi right? It definitely isn't!

Actually, it would be wrong to say that Bhiwadi isn't known to many. It is, but for all not-so-good reasons. In 2021, Bhiwadi received the tag of being the most polluted city in the world. Yes, you read it right, IN THE WORLD! How come this little city, which hardly anyone knows about suddenly got so polluted that it topped the world!? It has mainly happened because of urban distress as Bhiwadi was never ready for such quick industrialisation. Building industries comes with great challenges and need appropriate preparedness. Air pollution in Bhiwadi just one of the many problems Bhiwadi houses. It suffers from land degradation which has led to unhealthy to no agricultural produce; Bhiwadi's inefficient drainage systems poses difficulties during rains; transportation system in Bhiwadi is inefficient due to which people only rely on private vehicles. Isn't it too much for the people to handle?

Fortunately, there have been actions implemented by the Bhiwadi Integrated Development Authority such as road treatments, tighter regulations for industries, housing reforms etc. which hopefully will give some relief to our ailing city. But are governmental actions enough? Do we not need active participation of the residents in this process to make the city building a holistic exercise? Let's have a conversation in the comment section!