Menace of the Malls

Malls are mushrooming in our cities at a pace that is difficult to keep track of. As per latest reports, 600 more will come up in nook and corner of cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune by 2010. Malls are glamorous and attractive but they also have a huge maintenance cost. In the current climate challenged world, can we afford them? Here, decide for yourself.

Guzzling giants

Energy

• Electricity use per unit gross floor area is anywhere between 391 to 454 kilo watt per hour per m2.
• An average Indian mall gets standard electricity bill of around Rs 15-20 lakh, in which air conditioning and electric lighting account for 85 per cent. Most have 24-hr generator back up system too which uses fuel.

Water

• Most have groundwater boring systems and pump in gallons of water daily.

Taking Delhi as an example, here the energy demand for the projected real estate space by 2012 will be around 10,788 mega watt which is double the present energy demand of the city. And the water demand will be at 3,596 MLD (million litres per day), which is equal to total demand now.

Waste generators

• Plastic waste that piles up in and around malls and other ommercial
  establishments is a major cause of pollution.
• The packaging baggage of plastic is handed out with every urchase.
• While mall authorities keep the interiors of the mall squeaky clean,
  outside a dumping yard surrounds the building.
• Most of them do not have any recycling or disposal systems. The
  ones which have, usually don’t use them.

Congestion culprits

• The traffic thronging the malls accounts for shocking 30 per cent of all pollution in and around the city.
• Malls mostly do not consider the carrying capacity of the neighbourhood and often cause spill over parking on the roads.
• Most malls cleverly evade the Environment Impact Assessment which regulates only structures above 20,000 metre square–a limit
  being pushed to 50,000 metre square now.

Malls take a huge toll on the city’s environment. Is there anyone making profit at all? Research says no. Conversion rate of percentage of visitors who turn into shoppers is as low as 10-15 per cent. And it accounts for just 3 per cent of the country’s total retail sales. World over there are 400 ‘dead malls’ which shut shop when maintenance is too high and profit too low to make business sense.