The primary problem of Gurgaon is Bad Governance

  • Dev Chopra (UN retiree)
  • India
  • Feb 27, 2015

My family and I have lived here for 17 years. We reside off MG Road, next to Heritage Apartments & the MG Road Metro Station. Gurgaon has grown and continues to ‘flourish’, but the multiple authorities - DC, MCG, HUDA, PWD, HSIIDC, Police, Law & Order, Sanitation, Fire, Local Transport, Health, Education, etc. – need to be made more accountable. MCG has not yet found an effective way or method to charge property taxes; and when those who have paid regularly seek refund, MCG insists that ‘the credit balances will be adjusted’! Why is a city & district that produces 45-49%  of the State's revenue not able to recruit staff even within the sanctioned numbers (which themselves are woefully inadequate)? The rich get the 5-star schools, hospitals, 100s of multi-storied apartment buildings fitted with generators and hundreds of bars. For the rest there is electricity in bits & pieces, tube wells and water tankers in thousands, wine shops also in thousands, and thousands of 3-wheelers (with 8-10-12 passengers each) spewing black smoke. Water, energy, sanitation, healthcare, law & order, education etc. remain half-done or are in a limbo. Most drains and streetlights are absent or broken down. This indeed is the state of affairs in our Gurgaon.  Meanwhile, there is a big, further ‘Master-Planned’ expansion of the City in ‘progress’. It all makes one wonder, just who is in the seat of governance? Who is minding this store?

The problem of the last 15 years, or more - from the Chautalas to the Hoodas - is now in the lap of the first-ever BJP government and a non-Jat Chief Minister. May be it is too soon to say, but the Ministerial or MLA ranking officials seem to be readying to create yet another body - the Gurgaon Development Authority (GDA). Is this just a copy-catting of NOIDA? It is now 20 years since the 74th. Amendment was enacted by the national Parliament, making the States responsible for replicating effective governance at the city and district levels. If 35 elected Councillors, along with a Mayor & 2 Deputies, remain for ‘show & blow’ only (no work or responsibility), what then is different from the old colonial cum ‘nawabi’ rule of the pre-Independence days? It's just that now it’s commissioners, politicians and contractors who rule the roost! The presence of multiple authorities, with no one really in control & governance dependent upon Chandigarh-Panchkula's beck and call, makes a mockery of a supposed citizen-oriented democratic self-rule. Ill-planned, faulty, off-the-cuff implementation, despite the availability of funds with the State, has left Gurgaon in the lurch. Does the approach of now recommending GDA (by our new MLA) suggest yet again a role for (new) contractors & ‘consultants’? Why a GDA in the first place? Our Constitution advocates & promotes Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), and Panchayati Raj in the rural areas. The City should have democratic & accountable governance, in which a citizen’s right to participate in its development is valued, respected and promoted. Instead, we are strangulated by experimental websites, low tax collections & ill managed governance. The State legislatures should strengthen local self-govt., and ensure strict and effective implementation & accountability. Today all of that remains on paper and in a dream. I fail to see anything happening in my 81st. year, after investing our all here - after coming from Lahore in 1947. Meanwhile, our home has been burgled twice. Is anyone listening? Or will it all get rounded off with ‘smart cities’ and ‘Swachh Abhiyan’ -  slogans that remain but polite and fair queries? My hope is that Friday Gurgaon will raise the issues of residents at the levels where it counts.

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