Pull up your socks, Gurgaon, says ASSOCHAM
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Pull up your socks, Gurgaon, says ASSOCHAM

According to a survey conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, the monsoon mess in Gurgaon can be blamed on the city's poor civic sense and weak infrastructure.

Pull up your socks, Gurgaon, says ASSOCHAM

With the rains wreaking havoc on Gurgaon, ASSOCHAM, the apex industry body of India, has sent an SOS call to the Haryana government to save the city from the “monsoon mess” and urged the industry to earmark a percentage of its profits for perking up the city infrastructure.

The social development arm of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) had conducted a survey over the past month of about 1,500 residents and daily commuters in Gurgaon, to assess the Millennium City’s preparedness for the monsoons.

About 55 per cent of the respondents complained of a civic crisis in Gurgaon, where garbage, including construction and waste material, got washed away and ended up in piles on roads, leading to health hazards.

“Traffic in the city comes to a halt whenever it rains, exposing serious lapses in urban planning and execution. The city has no proper drainage or sanitation system, no road repair or garbage removal process,” highlighted the respondents, most of whom regretted shifting to the city or coming here for work.

Many said that there were various areas that saw waist-high waterlogging for days together, leading to a disruption of vehicular traffic. “Stagnant rainwater on the roads and a lack of monitoring by the traffic police at junctions add to snarls,” they said.

The present situation, noted the ASSOCHAM survey, was a result of a significant population spurt in the years between 2001 and 2011, in which the city jumped from 9 lakh residents to 15 lakh, an increase of about 74 per cent. This, together with the city’s poor civic sense, a resource crunch and a dearth of civic workers, are responsible for the present problem.

“Gurgaon has been suffering from the hazards of unplanned development for quite some time now. It is imperative that the authorities now focus on strengthening infrastructure if it is to be a truly smart city,” said DS Rawat, secretary-general of ASSOCHAM, while releasing the findings of the survey.

"The city’s civic administration needs to be professionalised, experts in the municipal department need to be hired and, to check the resource crunch, the financial structure of the municipal body needs to be overhauled," he added.

“If Gurgaon is to live up to its reputation as India’s growth symbol, global Fortune 500 companies, along with other national and global firms, should spend part of their profit to help improve the city’s infrastructure,” he added.