Corporate hub or crime capital?

Planners say roads should have been designed to be safer, and more police protection put in from the beginning

It was touted as the Millennium City, where corporate houses could flourish and citizens could live without the fear of being robbed or gunned down. But over a decade after multinational companies, call centres and realty tycoons rushed into Gurgaon, Delhi’s satellite town has witnessed only a spurt in crime and not many civic amenities.

With corporates and developers shifting base to Gurgaon, the city itself been split into two. There’s the new, urban part with MNC offices, malls and hip hang-outs; and there’s the old city of villages clustered around National Highway 8. The problems of residents in the two parts are also distinct. While the better parts experience a dearth of public transport and amenities like power and water, in the old city it is predominantly crime.

“Areas like the DLF Township, which has the malls, has adequate security. But only after some cases of robberies in the high-profile localities in September,” says Tanima Aggarwal, who moved from Delhi 12 years ago. In the past year, Gurgaon has seen a spate of robberies in the better-off localities, murder of a high-ranking cop, and even cases of young kids involved in shooting and murder.

For people who travel in and out of Gurgaon on NH8, the drive is a nightmare. They never know when they will get held up and have their car stolen. “We are trying to streamline law and order here, but it’s difficult to deploy policemen in every part of the city because of a tremendous shortage,” says Gurgaon commissioner of police Mohinder Lal. A population of nearly 18 lakhs gets just over 3,000 cops for security.

When cities are developed the first thing that needs to be considered, planners say, is safer roads. “Gurgaon’s major failure has been the large expanse of vacant land and numerous service lanes, which are not manned by any security personnel,” says urban planner Ikshit Jain.

y_puneet@dnaindia.net