Karan Singh lost his 17-year-old daughter, Bulbul, to an electric shock from a high-tension line passing just inches above the terrace of his single-storey residence. He was still struggling to recover from the terrible tragedy when he lost another relative the same way. In a neighbouring house, a panicky Sita Devi does not allow her children to go to the terrace. “I keep the door to the terrace locked. In the last 11 years that I have been living here, I have seen so many deaths and accidents that I do not want to take any risk,” she says.

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The 66KVA high-tension line continues to terrorise hundreds of residents of Patel Nagar in Gurugram nearly two years after Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar ordered the municipal corporation to bear the cost of its realignment.

“We don’t understand why the administration is not complying with the directive. The delay in the realignment process is fatal. We are living a perilous life here,” resident Deepchand Chaudhary says.

On May 8, 2015, during a District Level Grievance Meeting, CM Khattar had announced that the line will be realigned. The entire cost was to be borne by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG).

When asked about the delay, MCG Additional Commissioner Amit Khatri said: “It is a hefty amount. We are waiting for written orders from the headquarters. Once we receive the order in writing, the MCG will start the work.”

A letter notified to the MCG Commissioner by the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited, a Haryana government undertaking, stated that the realignment process was going to cost approximately Rs 4.10 crore.

“More than 70 people have died in the last decade alone and yet the MCG is ignoring the sensitive issue,” says Abhay Jain, Convener, Manav Awaaz Sanstha.

Meanwhile, unaware of the official proceedings, resident Vimla Devi is worried for another reason. “When my children were young, it was not so difficult. But now they are married and we need more space in our house. We cannot construct another storey as the high-tension wire passes just above our terrace,” she says.

As if this was not enough, as many as five houses that the DNA team visited had electric poles inside them. A tormented Singh, who lost his daughter because of the administration’s apathy, says: “The man who sold me the land assured me that the wires above had no power. It was only after my daughter died that I realised the danger above our heads.” 

Retired Police Constable D K Yadav, who has been living in the area since 1984, says: “The Cyber City is a big hoax. Look, how big the fundamental civic issues are here. I pay my taxes. Am I not entitled to the district administration’s services?”