Residents of Gaur City, in Noida Extension, will not rest till they get free entry to the township's stadium.
About 150 of them protested against the builder, Gaursons, on Saturday by shouting slogans and practising yoga in front of the sports complex gates. They also went on a protest march on the township's central roads.
The protest was in retaliation to the builder's plan to charge an additional yearly amount for using the stadium inside the sports complex.
Residents say that Gaursons had not mentioned any additional charges when they were booking flats. Now that 3,000 of the 16,000 flats were already occupied and residents were using the stadium for their regular morning walks and jogging, they had imposed an entry charge of Rs 4,500 per adult and Rs 3,500 per minor. This, for an average family of four, would amount to Rs 16,000 per month, which was exorbitant. To add to this, residents who wanted to use the sports complex had to pay a five-year membership fee of Rs 50,000, apart from the extra charges for using the cricket and the tennis academies.
Jitendra Bhatt, a resident, told City Spidey that if the builder didn't roll back the charges, they would hold such protests every day. "And if even that doesn't help, we will go on a strike in front of the township's gates," he said.
Vipin Pal, another resident, said, "Gaursons will have to roll back the charges. They can't suddenly just come up with these charges on a whim. They should have told us right at the time of booking that we would have to pay for using our own sports complex and stadium."
However, Gaursons does not seem forthcoming on the issue. When City Spidey took up the matter with Manoj Gaur, managing director of Gaursons India Ltd, he said they would not roll back any of the charges. "We have not done anything wrong. These are charges for extra amenities that were not included with the amount invested in flats," he said.
Residents protested by practising yoga in front of the sports complex gates
