Ease of living still a distant dream for most residents in New Gurugram

Gurugram: Security, power and even water supply are some of the basic facilities that are being denied to a large number of families in New Gurugram as the builders have not paid the charges to the public agencies.

Recently, the families residing at Dwarka Expressway said that they fear their power supply could be cut as the builders have not paid the charges to the electricity board. The stern action was taken by the public authorities even resulted in the resident's welfare association statting that rather than focussing on the builder for the payment they would collect the amount and pay it directly to DHBVN.

Not only power but even water supply seems to be denied due to the non-payment of dues by the builders. With over Rs 40 lakhs dues pending, the GMDA cut the water supply to a society in Sector-57. There have been over 20 residential societies that have also been served notices by the public agency for not paying for the water supply.

The non-payment of salaries for more than three months also resulted in a union of security of guards of Godrej Frontier society protesting against the builder as well as the contractor.

The cost of rapid and unplanned growth of residential townships is being felt by its residents. Under debt, most of the builders have failed to apply for the licence for power, as a result 12,000 families are forced to depend on generators for their power supply.

Most of the builders began their projects in 2005-2006 when the real estate business in the city was booming.

The financial crisis of 2008 and the slowdown in the property market of the national capital region thereafter resulted in builders not applying for licences for power and even water connection to save costs.

In the 400 residential societies that are presently there in Gurugram, around 120 of the condominiums are said to be not be provided with the power supply from the government body. Moreover, with piped water supply not being provided in most of the new sectors, the water is extracted from the groundwater reserves.

All these complaints are coming out at a time when most of the builders are already facing flak over using substandard construction materials in building the residential societies.