MCG to take over private colonies for maintenance in Gurugram

Gurugram: For years, thousands of residents have expressed their anger over the poor upkeep of the private colonies and high charges of maintenance levied by the developers. Sensing the simmering public anger over the issue on April 2017, Chief Minister ML Khattar announced that Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) will gradually take over the private colonies.

Since then, there have been disagreements between the public officials and builders over various issues has resulted in no colonies being taken over.

However, the MCG officials time and again have assured the residents that colonies will be taken over by it.

On Monday, the MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav again mentioned that with all the outstanding issues on the verge of being resolved, five colonies namely Suncity colony, Palam Vihar, DLF phase 1, 2 and 3 will be acquired in the coming months.

The prospects emerged after there was a meeting between the MCG officials and private builders where the majority of the developers accepted the revised detailed project report (DPR) formulated by the public officials.

After the announcement by Chief Minister, there was the survey done that how much dues was to be given to the public agency for maintenance works by the private developers.

Major discrepancies and complications, however, resulted in the processes being delayed. In effect, the worse sufferers of all this were the residents who time and again through various protests have complained that how the builder in many cases is not paying attention in providing good roads, water and power connections.

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 is important to note that the private developers are still responsible for the upkeep of the colonies like ensuring security, ensuring street lighting and collection of garbage from homes.

In the past, senior public officials have mentioned that the private colonies, that are to be acquired by the public body, must expedite their maintenance works and fill in their infrastructural deficiencies.

The MCG chief had also warned that those builders who are not going to adhere to the standards will risk losing licences. Most of the private developers are yet to apply for full completion certificate from the public agencies even after most of the developers got way back in the eighties and nineties to develop the residential colonies.