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Look, oil

Look, oil It's 7 am. T here is little traffic on the usually busy highway that bestrides the Noida Industrial Area, on the outskirts of Delhi. A dark, frail person in a grimy shirt walks towards a drain; he has a jerry can in his hand. This is Ramkaran, originally from Mau-Aimma village near Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, and now a resident of a slum near Sarita Vihar, New Delhi. This 32-year old belongs to a work force of nearly 10,000 who scan drains for oil. The members of this sorry brigade can be identified quite easily by their trademark jerry cans that jangle along on both sides of their bicycles as they pedal towards drains near industrial areas: Sahibabad, Noida, Ghaziabad and Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi

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