Gurgaon boasts of MNCs, swanky apartments, golf courses, and malls. Yet, water shortages and poor sewage disposal and public transport haunt the city
Without a doubt, Gurgaon is the kind of city urban planners can learn from on how not to build a city. This, for various reasons: A private sector gone berserk because it was blindsided by greed, successive governments that abdicated responsibility, and apathy on part of the landed gentry.
But a World Bank official who does not wish to be identified says Gurgaon was nothing but a land grab operation by builders and politicians. A 2009 WWF Report on Indian Urbanisation quotes Arun Maira, member of the planning commission and part of a local NGO trying to revive Gurgaon. “The fundamental problem here is that urbanisation has been driven by bad planning and a thought process which doesn’t believe in devising viable urban spaces.” The philosophy, he says, seems to be to let people build residences and offices arbitrarily and as they get occupied, infrastructure and other economic activity will follow. This is a prime example of ad hoc and unsustainable urbanisation, he adds.
“After all, we get the city we deserve… They’ll gripe for a while, but then you can pull down the curtains and there are few things a good drink will not help you forget,” chuckles KC Sivaramakrishnan.
Correction: This article has been updated with a correction. We had earlier stated that KP Singh of DLF had invited Jeffery Immelt of GE to visit India. It was actually Jack Welch.
(This story appears in the 03 August, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)