Panchkula becoming less liveable

Rajesh Krishan

Panchkula has achieved a lot of “firsts” lately, from becoming the first city in the country to install wireless panic buttons at bus shelters (the project is currently at testing stage), to becoming the first open defecation-free district in Haryana, to being the country’s first city to torch the record smashing 210-foot-tall Ravana effigy, said to be built at a whopping cost of Rs 30 lakh.

As much as these initiatives underline the status of the city as an administrative, financial and political hub and aim at lifting the city’s image, all the while providing a welcome departure from the usual doom and gloom news, they’re also an act of misplaced priorities on the part of the administration given the state of the city, which is marred by a myriad of challenges and issues.

Take your pick: dysfunctional bus queue shelters, lack of well-networked and convenient public transport options, malfunctioning traffic lights and CCTV cameras, open manholes, potholed roads, broken pavements, inadequately lit streets, missing signboards, encroachments of footpaths and market areas, lack of bicycle lanes, poorly maintained parks, non-functional public toilets, traffic snarls, haphazard parking, air pollution, lack of uniform garbage collection system, hanging electricity wires, lack of police patrol, indifferent public officials, stray cattle roaming freely on and last but not the least, rampant crime activities. 

Of all these, I believe that the three ‘Cs’ — cattle, canines and crime — have become a part of Panchkula residents’ existence and therefore, are a particular concern. Just about every second day, we come across instances wherein stray animals cause an accident or bite someone. The instances of chain snatching, motor vehicle theft, house break-ins, kidnapping, loot, drug selling, rapes and of late, even murders, have also become increasingly commonplace nowadays.

The result of this lethal cocktail is that the city, once touted as ‘the Paris of Haryana’, has become increasingly less liveable. In some parts of the city, the situation, in fact, is so bad that even a short walk or a bicycle ride to the market or the nearby park can prove a challenge.

To cap all this off, the authorities would do well to focus less on “firsts” that come at the expense of public resources and amenities, and more on serving the city and its dwellers in the best possible way. For instance, instead of spending a fortune on torching Ravana’s effigy, the same amount of money could be spent in a considerably much more productive manner by meeting the needs of homeless, orphaned and the marginalised destitute.

There is no point in declaring the city open defecation-free. The first thing is to construct clean, safe and usable toilets. Similarly, if you want to install wireless panic buttons at bus shelters, do it, but first improve the quality of policing and restore people’s faith in the police. As long as we don’t adopt this focus, we’re still miles and miles away from our progression towards becoming a genuinely Smart City.

Cause for concern

For those residing in the newly built sectors of the city, which have villages in their vicinity and where population is scarce, the situation is even worse, with stray cattle roaming around freely and rummaging through garbage littered on the streets, construction waste and debris scattered along the roads and people consuming alcohol openly, arguing, fighting, urinating and even defecating in the open.