Gurgaon, October 13
There’s more to Gurgaon than malls, multiplexes and state-of-the-art buildings. With potholes, craters and vanishing roads, Gurgaon is no more in the fast lane.

Recently laid concrete roads have been dug up for laying of pipes even as the city is crying for parking space. In this Millennium City where pay packets are fat and life at a whirring pace, residents encounter a bone-rattling experience the moment they step out of their homes.

The road under the wheels turns into cobbled stones as a smoke of dust clouds the way ahead. At times the shock-absorbers prove simply ineffectual as the vehicle hits potholes nothing less than craters.

Stink emanating from stagnant water pools on roads fills the air only to be overpowered by a stronger reek rising out of cow dung and heaps of rotten garbage strewn all across the length and breadth of Gurgaon.

Parking places are cramped for want of space to accommodate the growing number of vehicles but there are no solutions in sight. These are gradually eating into the road space.

“The Congress government promised to wipe out all discrimination between new and old Gurgaon when it came to power over three years back. Today, the task stands accomplished,” says president of the residents association of Sun City Abhey Punia.

“Instead of improving civic amenities in old Gurgaon, the government, in its wisdom, seems to have decided to lower the standards of new Gurgaon also.

“We have to search for patches of road... Let the government fix find out where the money pumped into repairing roads has gone,” he remarks wryly.

The residents hold the “indifferent” district administration responsible for their woes which have magnified with passing months.

The Basai Road, Delhi-Mehrauli Road, Palam Vihar, Court Sohna road, Khandasa, DLF, HUDA sectors and just about everywhere else, its the same tale. Though repair work has begun, it is superficial with contractors carrying out patchwork alone.

President of the Gurgaon’s Citizens’ Council RS Rathee maintains since the very contractors who did poor work have been awarded contracts to recarpet the roads, you “cannot expect quality work from them.”

It seems the end of the road for residents hoping for improved civic amenities.