MILLENNIUM CITY OR MINIMUM CITY?

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by: zameen 102
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Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 Time: 10:31 PM
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Compared to Delhi, it is not the rent but the cost of living which is considerably high in Gurgaon. The reason is obvious enough - a sheer lack of basic amenities like water, power, roads, public transport, petrol pumps, police stations, post offices, among other. NAMRATA KOHLI reports
Staying in the millennium city and enjoying all kinds of lifestyle amenities" - if that is the image conjured by Gurgaon, you surely need a realty check! Even though lifestyle amenities are available within a complex while staying in a private developer's apartment, people end up paying through their noses to enjoy even a decent standard of living as basic infrastructure in the city is nonexistent and it is the builders who raise them at a huge cost, and then bill it to the end user. The point is, while rents in Gurgaon may not be significantly high, what pinches the pocket is the basic cost of living, simply because of the sheer lack of basic amenities.
Undoubtedly, private developers erected some of the best models of habitation in Gurgaon - good designs as well as quality of construction with features like swimming pools, jogging parks, clubs, etc, thrown in so that it is the gated communities are self-contained units. However these have not been matched by basic physical infrastructure by development authorities. The result is that there is a glaring difference that an onlooker or resident will experience in Gurgaon - on the one hand is the IT city of swanky malls, BPO firms, MNCs, and corporate offices, and on the other is the Gurgawa - of broken roads, heavy traffic, inadequate infrastructure, among a host of other ills! For the residents of Gurgaon, the experience is quite varied - within their gated communities and outside. Also, the end users pay much more for every amenity which is counted as basic in most other places, to enjoy a decent quality of life. According to Diksha Seth, "We end up paying nearly three times for electricity in Gurgaon vis-a-vis Delhi, simply because power is simply not there."
Since the city has very little power, all the commercial buildings - a majority of which are glass towers - run diesel generating sets housed in large basements. And, each building has a mammoth 7-10 megawatt unit. That is the power consumption of a small town. Arjun Thapar, an architect, recounts a lingering memory of his, "Diesel being supplied not in small drums but by tankers from Indian Oil, which drive in and empty the fuel in large underground tanks". Thapar says: "Gurgaon is full of these fancy glazed office blocks with curtain walling and no natural ventilation. They are huge heat traps (on account of their being glazed) and thus need lots of power to run the airconditioning. What a shame that on one hand we seek green buildings and a green community, while on the other we build for ourselves these huge energy guzzlers and we don't have the requisite public power generation to run these buildings."
A clear indicator of a lack of basic amenities can be judged by the fact that there are a zillion vacant plots in Gurgaon but people settle for living in apartments where all these headaches are managed by the facility managers or the society, as the case may be. The problems are not solved, only the work is outsourced to someone.
Take the case of Rahul Kapur, who shifted from his Sushant Lok bungalow to an apartment in Gurgaon. He says he had to wake up several times each night to switch on the genset whenever there was a power cut. This meant waking up at 2am, switching on the genset, and switching it off - again when there is a power cut at 4am, the whole process is repeated which compromises his sleep. Rahul says: "Believe me, in Gurgaon, one needs gas, security, water, power backup, etc. If you are coming from abroad, you are in for a shock! Given all of the above, it makes little sense for even the brave to live in a plotted house." Apart from this, even the typical daily conveniences are to be found in shopping centres at a fair distance, except for milk and bread, which are normally available in inside the housing society. This further reinforces the fact one must live in a society and not in a plot.
As for water, there is only a limited public water supply in Gurgaon - confined to what you can extricate from the tap, that too when it runs. The balance must be extracted from the ground using tube wells.
A lot has been written about Gurgaon's roads, their craters (not potholes) in particular, which are an obvious problem during monsoons. But as experts point out, Gurgaon's roads are not even straight, nor of a consistent width, and without any working street lights or storm-water drainage. One good rain can increase your travel time by 50% as the poor state of roads retard traffic flow. Since there was no traffic planning, road widths are rarely ever proportional to the traffic volume generated. So, whether it's DLF Cyber City or the malls, residents must endure the endless jams on an ongoing basis.
Since the city is in a state of growth, a lot of development is still to happen. So for basic conveniences, residents have to suffer a lot of inconvenience. Vandana Bhasin, a resident of Oakwood Estate, says that one cannot survive in Gurgaon without a car, preferably one car to a person. Vandana says, "Autos do not ply here and commuting is very difficult. Also, Gurgaon is not blessed with local markets the way Delhi is and one has to head for the mall for everything."
Another resident narrates how she had to undergo a succession of ordeals for getting a single photocopy done. Ritu of Jalvayu Vihar says: "I had to first travel a few kilometres. When you do get to the commercial centre where a machine is available, you are unlikely to get any parking. Any paid parking by the developer will cost you at least Rs 25. If this parking is full, which in all likelihood it is - since all commercial centres have underprovided parking - the options that you have is to park on the road, or in one of the unauthorized parking lots in the adjoining open plots of land (there is no dearth of vacant plots, as Gurgaon has developed in a very scattered way). These open plots have flourishing parking lots run there by owners of those plots or by the local goons. If you park on the road, and walk to the mall (a perfectly acceptable way to park in front of a neighbourhood shopping centre anywhere in the world), the local goon's boys will come and deflate at least three of the four tyres of your car, and you will be left stranded. Help will come at a cost, as there are hardly any petrol pumps in Gurgaon."
Talking about the next woe in Gurgaon, if you have exhausted the last litre in the petrol tank, the closest petrol pump in could even be 5km away. This is because no petrol pumps were ever identified and located by the city planners. Apart from petrol pumps, even post offices are difficult to come by. With several private courier offices plying their trade here, the post and telegraph department did not even bother to allocate pin codes here! Arjun, the architect, points out that the million dollar secret is that although old Gurgaon has a traditional list of pin codes, much of the modern Gurgaon has only one pin code - 122002! Moreover, nearly all residents complain that everything comes at a steep price - power, power backup, facility management (which gives you 24x7 water supply and security) - and, to the ordinary householder, even fruits and veggies, not to mention other utilities, are a lot costlier than in Delhi.
Also, what happens to sewerage is noteworthy. The effluents are collected in large tankers and discharged into open plots or a few natural drains by local contractors, who own tractors that haul these tankers on a daily basis to discharge points. One such discharge point in on the Golf Course Road, near the smart Technopolis building, where flowed what was once a rivulet. The large open space in front of the Nestle building on NH 8 is another large open sewer. These are not only large mosquito breeding grounds but also a testament to the state of affairs of our civic infrastructure and urban planning.
But a glimmer of hope has come in many ways - a few power stations planned to come up over the next three years are expected to ease the power problem. The Metro has brought a much needed respite and eased the commuting woes of Gurgaon residents. Gurgaon is seen as an economic hub, as a city of opportunity, where everyone descends to earn a living. It has marvellous commercial and residential towers - but only when matched with excellent physical infrastructure will it truly transform from the actual 'Minimum city' to become the much advertized 'Millennium city'.
Courtesy:-Times Property 02-10-2010
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