Reporters Without Orders Ep 353: How NYT broke the story of Okhla plant ‘poisoning’ locals

In November last year, there were a flurry of reports in the Indian media on a waste-to-energy plant in Delhi’s Okhla that causes significant health risks to people living nearby. 

All these reports cited the same source – an investigative piece in The New York Times by journalist Maria Abi-Habib. Currently based in Mexico, Maria spent five years, between 2019 and 2024, to report on the story. She found the plant, operated by a subsidiary of the Jindal Group, pumps “as much as 10 times the legal amount of dioxins” into Delhi’s skies, and that its workers say it was “never regulated”. 

In this special episode of Reporters Without Orders, Newslaundry’s Pratyush Deep talks to Maria about how she stumbled upon this story. Her husband had been working on a series on air pollution in India – what Maria describes as “the biggest topic of concern, or should be, for most families and the government”. During the course of it, he met residents of Sukhdev Vihar, where the plant is located.

“They said they have been living there for a while and once the plant started, that is when their health problems started,” Maria says. “So, we decided to take a look and what we found was pretty incredible and also a little bit horrifying.”

Maria also explains the challenges she faced in reporting the story, and why she thinks Delhi’s air pollution crisis persists. 

“It is up to the government to take a look at the story and say why this plant is continuing to get the permission to expand its operations, why this Jindal family subsidiary continues to get more plants,” she says, adding that the group has “seven across the nation”. “If they can’t responsibly manage this plant, then why should they be given others?”

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar. 

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