Decks cleared for MCG to take over Gurugram's private colonies

Gurugram: Having hit a deadlock over a disagreement between private developers and public officials over the payment of maintenance dues, the possibility of a quick takeover of private colonies by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) is staring at the city. The prospect for this emerged stronger after a meeting between MCG officials and private builders where the majority of the developers accepted the revised detailed project report (DPR) formulated by the public officials.

It was announced by the Chief Minister in 2016 that the MCG will take over private colonies. After the announcement, there was the survey conducted as to how much dues were to be paid to the public agency for maintenance works. Major discrepancies and complications, however, have kept on delaying the process of takeover. The residents of private colonies in Gurugram are facing a dilemma as they have to pay the maintenance fee to both MCG and private colonizers.

In addition to the maintenance fees, the residents in the colonies developed by private colonisers also have to pay the house tax to the MCG. It has been officially announced that the private colonies developed by DLF, Ansals, Mayfield, Sun City and Unitech be handed over to the MCG. However, it has yet not been done as the colonisers have highlighted that they need to collect their pending amounts of the maintenance from the residents.

Even as MCG has not officially taken over most of the private colonies in Gurugram, it has started issuing maintenance fees along with house tax to the residents. The difficulties of the residents are further compounded as private colonisers still send the maintenance bills to the residents. Certain private colonisers are still responsible for the upkeep of the colonies like ensuring security and street lighting and collection of garbage from homes.

However, residents in some of these private colonies complain that the maintenance of the colonies has degraded. Most of the private developers are yet to apply for full completion certificate from the public agencies even though most of the developers got the license way back in the eighties and nineties to develop the residential colonies.