[Assam] Nightmares in Mall Town

[Chan Mahanta]

I am NOT surprised a bit. I have been there and 
have heard some of the horror stories from people 
who actually live there. I also learned of the 
infrastructure/architectural vulnerability of 
Gurgaon, when  I was a  part of a team of 
engineers and architects responding to an RFP 
from one of the main developers there. Had an 
opportunity to discuss issues with why they were 
shopping for an American design team and what 
they hoped to achieve with such a team on board. 
The answers were not convincing, actually 
disappointing -- it was NOT to design a better 
environment with better buildings.  It sounded 
like a ploy to sell to NRIs. Obviously we were 
not selected.  I  had no expectations of being 
selected either, even though our partners had. 
Good thing that we did not get selected. The 
selected firm, one of the world's largest AE 
firms, if not THE largest, quit midway after 
incurring heavy losses and were in litigation 
from what I heard. I will be very surprised if 
they are still litigating :-).

But I have no sympathy for the victims. Many are 
NRIs flush with dollars, hoping to live the 
lifestyle of Maharajahs with retinues of servants 
and being treated like royalty that they don't 
where they made their money. They ought to have 
known better.

And those desis who could afford to buy into a 
piece of the promised land, must have a lot more 
stashed away to be hurt, except for the few 
salaried professionals who sank their lifesavings 
into it.  I was horrified to hear that a fully 
occupied 10 plus story tall apartment complex had 
NO water in the building. Imagine the sanitation 
nightmare! I saw the tenants' domestic servants 
lining up on the neatly manicured lawn at the 
foot of the high-rise with a rainbow of colored 
plastic buckets for the water tanker in the 
morning.  And I remember the intermittent power 
outage; not as bad as Assam, but not expected of 
the Shining City on the Hill waving the banners 
of an aspiring 'superpower'. Our host's high-rise 
condo was bitterly cold, with NO insulation in 
the walls , and the little sun attempting to 
shine thru the dense  pollution created haze did 
not have a chance at warming anything of the huge 
heat sink that is the mass of un-insulated 
concrete and brick structure That was five years 
ago.


>The gap between what is promised and what is delivered is vast.

*** Just like the claims of India promoters of Assamnet.

cm










At 8:17 PM -0700 8/9/07, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
>Here is what is happening in Googaon.
>As so often, a sweet idea has turned sour in India.
>
>=======================================================
>Nightmares in Mall Town
>Jams. Power breakdowns. Water shortages. Road 
>rage. Spiralling crime. Gurgaon, India’s 
>metaphor for the future city, is in a messy 
>hole. And everybody is complaining. Shantanu 
>Guha Ray and Harsha Baruah report
>
>SLIDE SHOW
>
><http://www.tehelka.com/story_main33.asp?filename=Bu110807nightmares.asp#>Click 
>here to start »
>From a distance, it looked like a Confederation 
>of Indian Industry seminar being held in the 
>open: scores of senior executives of top mncs 
>and their families braving the blistering July 
>heat to stand in an empty swimming pool at 
>Gurgaon’s ultra-expensive Central Park apartment 
>complex. A huge blue banner in the backdrop 
>hinted at the obvious standoff between them and 
>the builders, Mahindra-Gesco and Messrs Bakshi 
>Builders, over a host of issues, prominent among 
>them being the denial of rights to a swanky club 
>once offered as bait with the condominium.
>
>The protestors did not engage in any 
>sloganeering, nor did they burn effigies. They 
>simply walked in and out of the pool and 
>dispersed. But the quiet, unusual protest once 
>again brought into the limelight the perennial 
>infrastructure problems residents face across 
>Gurgaon, India’s dream city that is wilting 
>under the pressure of half-a-million residents 
>and an additional crowd of 15 lakh industrial 
>workers/employees visiting the city six days a 
>week.
>
>Consider the case of Central Park: with 408 
>apartments sold for around Rs 3-4 crore each, it 
>is one of the prime residential zones in 
>Gurgaon. But the builders, Gulab Farms Private 
>Limited, a unit of Messrs Bakshi Builders, first 
>delayed the project for more than a year and are 
>now charging a host of internal development 
>charges from the residents.
>
>Says resident Rajiv Sharma, Airtel ceo for small 
>and medium businesses: “We paid a non-refundable 
>Rs 25,000 for the club membership. Worse, they 
>are now passing on internal development charges 
>on to us.” Adds Vineet Kapila, vice-president, 
>Coca-Cola, South-West Asia operations: “The 
>builder wants to charge exorbitant fees for a 
>club with facilities that other clubs in Gurgaon 
>provide for Rs 400-500 per month. As per the 
>records, almost all residents have paid 
>additional sums ranging from Rs 5-11 lakh.”
>
>
>can of sardines: one of Gurgaon’s biggest 
>problems is the absence of public transport
>Kapila, Sharma and others have written to 
>Mahindra Gesco chairman Anand Mahindra, seeking 
>his intervention. But it has not cut much ice 
>since Mahindra Gesco was merely the project 
>manager. Moreover, it is now out of the project. 
>This, many say, is in short the biggest crisis 
>afflicting the residential, mall and outsourcing 
>hub of Gurgaon. In other words, what is promised 
>is not delivered because the pressures are just 
>too high. Says Sandeep Arora, India 
>representative, Rare Whisky Collection and 
>Central Park resident: “Growth needs to be 
>supplemented with facilities. But when 
>facilities are missing, you have all kinds of 
>problems. Builders, private or otherwise, need 
>to address these problems.” For example, the dlf 
>Cyber City in Gurgaon gets power through its own 
>gas-fired turbine that has steady supplies from 
>the Gas Authority of India Limited. But how many 
>apartments in Gurgaon have such facilities?
>
>Experts draw instant comparisons with cities 
>like Noida and Greater Noida where the state 
>government first developed the infrastructure 
>and then started the construction process. But 
>in the case of Gurgaon, it worked the opposite 
>way.
>
>“The state government needs to work seriously on 
>infrastructure before hawking these places. Just 
>look at the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road and the malls 
>and expensive condominiums coming up on both 
>sides of it — do we have the infrastructure to 
>support it?” asks Sanjay Kaul, head of an 
>advocacy group on Gurgaon.
>
>Agrees Arvind Mohan, vice-president, Omaxe 
>Limited, one of the country’s leading builders: 
>“When Gurgaon was being developed, the state 
>government promised the moon to builders like 
>dlf, Ansals and Unitech. Look at where we are 
>today.” Mohan is supported by Abdul Bari, senior 
>vice-president, marketing, Majestic Properties. 
>“The Haryana government must have stricter 
>building norms. Infrastructure is in a shambles 
>and the concept of the integrated township is 
>gone. Earlier, the norm was to have one car per 
>flat, now it’s four cars per flat. Gurgaon is a 
>messy, modern village.”
>The gap between what is promised and what is 
>delivered is vast. The current dip in 
>residential real estate prices does not bother 
>the builders because retail remains high on 
>their radar. Malls are mushrooming all over 
>Gurgaon and the pressure on traffic, power, 
>security and water is on an all-time high.
>Many agree that the mall market has reached a 
>saturation point, and that they either have to 
>change their usp or face extinction. “The rate 
>of growth of retail in India is approximately 30 
>percent. We have to take this into account when 
>we’re asked whether there’s a glut of malls,” 
>says Mohan. He adds: “The pie is getting bigger 
>because the malls are catering to the whole 
>family.”
>That’s good news for the seller. But what about 
>the buyer? Parking space comes at a premium all 
>across Gurgaon. A recent study showed malls 
>having only 40 percent parking space for its 
>occupants and customers. As a result, Gurgaon — 
>infrastructure-wise — is in utter chaos.
>
>no breathing space: mushrooming malls have 
>increased traffic and power pressures
>The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam pegs the 
>electricity requirement of Gurgaon at 90 lakh 
>units per day and maintains there is no 
>shortfall. But residents have a different story 
>to tell. On an average, each home in Gurgaon has 
>an hour-long load shedding a day. “The 
>sanctioning of plots should have slowed down 
>much earlier. Why is it that the bureaucrats are 
>waiting for the extended Master Plan? It is 
>because now they have realised the mess they 
>have gone in,” says Pradip Jain, one of 
>Gurgaon’s topmost planners.
>
>Water is another crisis zone. Current estimates 
>show Gurgaon could lose its entire drinking 
>water reserve by 2012. A pipeline links the 
>Western Yamuna Canal in Sonepat to Gurgaon, yet 
>large parts of Gurgaon still do not receive 
>water. What’s more, reports prepared by the 
>Haryana Urban Development Agency (HUDA) say a 
>high-tech city like Gurgaon must have high-tech 
>solutions.
>
>“But is it happening? Where are the hi-tech 
>solutions? There is no satisfactory bus system. 
>There is no monorail either. We have just 
>started hearing about the Metro,” says GB Singh, 
>president, Asian Professional Security 
>Association that works across Asia. Singh, who 
>has lived in Gurgaon — whose current police 
>force covers a mere one-third of the city — for 
>more than two decades, says that besides 
>infrastructure tensions, crime is another cause 
>for worry. “On an average, Gurgaon witnesses 10 
>thefts and five robberies in a day.”
>
>That, incidentally, is the latest cause for 
>concern and discussion for all those who live in 
>Gurgaon, which HUDA still calls “India’s truly 
>international city.”
>
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