Gurugram residents raise infra concerns

Sumedha Sharma

Gurugram, July 2

Residents welfare associations (RWAs) across the city have said the nod to construction of stilt-plus-4 floors will put pressure on the already burdened civic infrastructure.

S+4 floors maximum in Millennium City

• Gurugram has the highest number of stilt-plus-four floors in Haryana, with maximum in Sectors 43, 61, 79B and 89
• 62% of these floors are on plots with access to 9 to 10 metre roads and 31% on 12-metre roads

Though the government has laid out prerequisite infrastructural requirements for construction of these apartments, residents feel that water, power, drainage, sewerage and parking infrastructure will not be able to bear the increased density of residents.

“We already have many structures in our sector where the floors are not being used just for one family but as many as 16 families. The old HSVP sectors have been built for certain density of people and has never been upgraded. Now they want to increase it by over 100 per cent. Will the old infrastructure be able to sustain? This should have been allowed only for new sectors,” said Rakesh Jinsi, president, RWA, Sector 17.

Another major concern raised by residents is the misuse of these floors for commerical purposes. “They have opened flood gates for problems. These apartments built earlier are already being misused as spas, hotels, airbnbs, clinics, gyms, etc . There will be no division of residential and commercial areas and the nuisance will increase,” said Sudha Singh of DLF Phase 3.

It may be noted that the approval is also under scanner owing to seismic positioning of Gurugram and the number of tremors felt in last five years. Gurugram sits on seven seismic fault lines in Delhi-NCR and the entire city falls under the seismic zone 4. Apart from the Jaipur depression, many normal fault lines pass through Gurugram — Sohna fault line, Moradabad fault line, Delhi-Moradabad fault line, Delhi-Haridwar fault line, and the junction of Aravalli and Alluvium near Delhi. If these become active, it can cause a quake of 7.5 magnitude. The city is yet to adopt quake-resident building designs. Builders however have hailed the decision.

“The policy clearly outlines infrastructural updates required, and if followed in letter and spirit, there will be no issue,” said Narender Yadav of Home Developers Association.