The issue of limited walking spaces continues to be a major challenge in Gurugram. Lack of footpaths, poor maintenance of pedestrian spaces, encroachments on the pavements and wrongly parked vehicles are some of the unattended problems for dwellers in the Millennium City.
While the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) claims that its officials are working towards resolving these problems, several residents remain unimpressed by these claims. The MCG office is being flooded by complaints about the poor quality of walking spaces and encroachments in the city by the residents, yet all of it goes unheard, according to many residents.
Although there has been a large-scale campaign, initiated by MCG, to remove the encroachments on the city pavements, residents have often highlighted that encroachment on the pavement is a regular sight. "The old parts of the city continue to have problems of the absence of adequate spaces. Now, the posh areas are also facing similar challenges," said an anonymous resident.
Raghav Sahni, a resident of Essel Towers, said: "MG Road, better known as Mall Mile, has extremely poor quality footpaths and also is burdened with the problem of encroachment and illegal parking. Some areas, in fact, lack footpaths."
Sahni also stated that all their complaints regarding these issues have been conveyed to MCG officials. "But there is no accountability by MCG towards addressing these issues," he added.
Moreover, areas such Mahavir Chowk, Sheetla Mata Road, Golf Course Road and Rajendar Park also are dealing with similar problems.
According to a senior MCG official, the poor quality of walking spaces is a major problem. "The MCG has come down heavily on illegal encroachments. Every alternate day, we remove the illegal encroachments across different parts of the city. We are also in the process of beautifying the footpaths. At MG Road, we are putting up new tiles," said the official, who wished not to be named.
"We continue to engage with citizens though various interactive platforms so that they can tell us about the problems they are facing," the official added.