NCR's party hub MG Road to be car free zone on New Year's Eve

Gurugram: With four days to go for New Year's eve, the Gurugram police have begun preparations for maintaining law and order in the area. Besides deploying a huge force of 500 officials, there are plans to make MG road a car free zone from 6 pm to 1 am on December 31.

There are plans to divert the vehicles coming from Mehrauli- Badaprpur (MG) road towards Golf Course road and those from National Highway-8 towards Sector -29. The parking facility for the vehicles is expected to be provided at the Leisure valley ground. Meeting s with the pub owners have also begun on the issues of discussing timings for closure of their business after welcoming 2018.

There are over 300 high scale restaurants in Gurugram that has resulted in it becoming one of the most preferred places for food, beverage and entertainment options among citizens of National Capital Region (NCR). With more than 150 pubs and bars, however, it has been MG road that for long has been frequented by the party goers. MG road is one of busiest roads in the city where traffic management on routine basis seems to be a big challenge. However, on big occasions like new years' eve there are over two lakh vehicles that descend at Mall mile. Having faced various financial challenges this year, the owners of the pubs want to bring in favourable packages so that this time the footfall is higher than the previous years.

In a major lapse in law and order, thousands of people had thronged the MG road on the new years eve of 2012 and there were large incidents of molestation that was reported. The year of 2017 has also been difficult for the law enforcement officials. Despite having three police stations guarding the posh locality this year there have been brazen crimes of culpable homicide, molestations, sex trade to even shootouts inside one of the malls. Further, drunken drivers continue to pose a challenge to law and order situation at MG road even as there have been deployment of personnel by the Gurugram police to improve the conditions at Mall Mile.

Not only do the police personnel have to meet the challenge of drunken rash driving but also of the altercations by the drunken drivers that often have long confrontation with the police officials when fined for the offence. During weekends there are more than 20 fines that are issued daily against the drivers that consume alcohol beyond the permissible limits.

In the past there have been complaints that the police officials and bouncers in the heat of the moment have also misbehaved with the people who visit the pubs.

"There is no denying the fact that maintaining of law and order has been a challenge for our team this year. However, we have been up to the task and I want to assure the citizens that they must feel anxious while coming to MG road and enjoy their new year's eve. I will also request them that certain restrictions are being imposed for their own security and therefore they must not take it as a matter of inconvenience, "said Ins Vikas Kaushik, SHO of Sector-29 police station.