2018: Infrastructure of Ggn leaves much to be desired

Gurugram: In 1991, the population of Gurugram was less than five lakhs. As the city ushers in 2019, its population is estimated to be over two million residents. Mentioning the city is now not just another burgeoning suburb near Delhi, Prime Minister in the past already placed it in the ranks of Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has called Gurugram the icon city.

While 2017 was the year when new infrastructure in the city came up, it was 2018 where the robustness and flaws of the new structures were tested. Despite making the lives of millions of residents in Gurugram comfortable, various flaws were also exposed in 2018. In June there were cracks that were witnessed at IFFCO Chowk flyover that was later declared as an aberration by the NHAI officials.

However, what actually was not an aberration but a disturbing reality was how the cracks emerged at the newly constructed flyovers at Hero chowk and later in Rampura. This led most of the residents of the quality of construction materials used in the construction of the new structures. If there were questions that were raised on the newly constructed flyovers, structural flaws also were observed in the newly set up underpasses. A host of fatal mishaps leading to casualties highlighted that how the underpasses at Hero Chowk, Rajiv Chowk and Signature Tower Chowk were not properly lit.

Moreover, they did not even have the electricity connection to begin and were drawing the power from the gensets. Having witnessed the black day of July 29, 2016, where 146 millimetres of rainfall led to a traffic jam of 18 hours, the administrators in Gurugram again failed to deal with

heavy rainfall.

On August 29 similar amount of rainfall led to Hero Chowk underpass being filled up with 20 feet of water which took three days for the officials to clear. After 2016, the state government expedited the construction of flyovers and underpasses. After the fiasco in 2018, the Gurugram have assured that stormwater drains in Gurugram will be set up. Having plagued the city for long the power supply in the city also did not show much improvement even as smart grid project started with various delays. Despite the installation of over 50,000 streetlights Gurgram continued to with most of the streetlights being non-functional.

With limited fleet and ambitious plans, the Gururgam bus service was finally launched in September.

Presently the new bus service is struggling to get enough customers and commuters are still forced to rely on private bus services and shared

diesel autos.