Death of a Car: A Day in Mayapuri Junkyard

The last day of a 15-year-old Santro in Delhi.

The body of the Santro car being taken to the press in Mayapuri Industrial Area.

(Photo: Natisha Mallick/The Quint)

Mayapuri Industrial Area is where all Delhi cars go to die. Vehicles with expired registrations – diesel cars have a shelf life of 10 years, whereas petrol cars can run for another five – are sold for scrap here.

When I visited Mayapuri’s junkyard, I followed a scrap Santro car which was sold to Harjeet Singh for Rs 17,000.

Singh has been operating in this market since the 90s. He says that the number of cars coming in varies on a daily basis, with up to 4-5 cars coming in on a good day.

Vinod Kumar works on disassembling parts of a Santro car in Mayapuri’s junkyard.

E Block in Phase 2 is where the cars are first broken down.

I’m told that it takes about 3-4 hours for a car to be completely disassembled. The parts which are usable are preserved, while the rest are discarded.

All plastic parts are usually taken by the workers who dissemble the car parts.

A CNG cylinder being removed from a scrap car.

Vinod Kumar works on disassembling parts of a car in Mayapuri. 

Usually, up to three workers work on removing the car parts from its body. Singh pays about Rs 500 to each worker for the disassembling. The seats, electric wires, windscreen, engine and gear oil recovered by these workers is sold in the same market.

Workers turn the car upside down to disassemble parts from below.

23-year-old Vinod Kumar is a daily wage worker who has been working in this junkyard since he was 15. It took him just about 3 months to learn the tricks of the trade.

Vinod Kumar works on the turned over Santro car. 

The chassis number, which is the vehicle identification number, is cut out from the scrap car and returned to the owner for safety reasons.

The engine of a Santro car removed and kept aside. 

Workers load up car seats, plastic body parts and electric wires from a disassembled car to be sold later.

The outer metal body of a Santro is loaded to be taken for weighing before it is sent to the presser.

The metal body of a disassembled Santro car at Dharam-Kaanta, a hydraulic weighing bridge for heavy weight vehicles.

Once all usable parts of a car are removed, what remains of the body is taken to Dharam-Kaanta where it is weighed. Singh tells me that the body is sold for Rs 10/kg.

The Santro that was just ripped apart in front of me weighs 575 kgs.

The Dharam-Kaanta reading shows the weight of a disassembled Santro. 

The metal body is finally taken into a cutter-presser workshop. 

From here, the car is taken to the cutting and pressing unit, where a different set of workers cut the metal body into smaller chunks – separating the doors, roof, bonnet and the boot into smaller units.

The metal body of a car being cut into smaller pieces with the help of a gas cutter.

A view from inside the car metal body being cut with gas cutters.

A metal carcass.

The metal sheet that formed the roof of a car being taken away to the presser.

Metal pieces being put in the presser for crushing them into cubes. 

In the final phase of the breakdown, these smaller units are fed to the presser and are converted into metal cubes.

Metal cubes being piled up in the workshop. 

These metal chunks, I’m told, will now be sent to steel mills for recycling.

An expired car ends as a metal cube.