Panchkula: When the roads are from Moon

Potholes on the road at Parshuram Chowk in Industrial Area, Panchkula. Kamleshwar Singh

DRIVING ON roads of Panchkula, ‘Paris of Haryana’, has become a nightmare for commuters as it is literally ‘pits and craters’ greeting all the time. Guess where the most non-motorable stretch of road in Panchkula is? Right in front of Panchkula BJP headquarters, on the separating road between sectors 1 and 2. If your vehicle’s axle does not break over this road, if your scooter does not trip and fall into a pothole, turn into Sector 1 for the corridors of power. The Deputy Commissioner, DCP and other state government functionaries take the same route to reach their office daily. Question: what cars do they drive, and what kind of bills do their vehicle maintenance departments raise?

Panchkula, more township than city, is the show window of Haryana. The government top brass, judges and other important personages in the BJP-led Haryana government live here. But for the officials of the Khattar-led government, it may as well not exist.

Residents wonder why. Is it because the majority of Panchkula Municipal Corporation’s councillors are affiliated to the Congress party?

The MC polls here were contested without party symbols in 2013, as per the rules. But of the 20 councillors, 13 councillors are from Congress party while there are only three who belong to BJP, two from INLD and two are independent. As the Congress councillors had a major chunk of their say, Upinder Ahluwalia was elected as the mayor. A mayor here in Panchkula has a five-year term and the city would be going to polls next year. After elections in 2013, when the Congress was still ruling Haryana, Panchkula saw development works picking up in the city. But ever since the BJP government came to power, BJP MLA Gian Chand Gupta and Mayor Ahluwalia, a favourite of the Congress party, have been locked in mortal combat. The potholes on the roads are a direct fallout.

Mayor Ahluwalia says the MLA has ordered the officials not to start any development work. MLA Gupta has a different tale to tell. According to him, the mayor does not let officers work. A few days after they join, they ask the government for a transfer from the MC. In this never-ending tussle, the sufferer is Panchkula.

Ahluwalia specified that the file of the road recarpeting work worth Rs 22 crore has been shuttling from one department to another in filedom.

“The BJP government doesn’t want us to take credit for the work. It was in March that the tenders were floated and financial bids were to be opened but it has not seen the light of day till now.”

She added, “Also, because I have been flagging the corruption by the officials who have the blessings of the MLA, the latter has been blaming me for everything. What did I ask for? Only the fact that there should be quality in the material being used for roads. How come the roads got damaged so soon? Because poor quality was used. And the official who was named in vigilance probe has been posted again. A note of the MLA is given on each posting and he got him here.”

Councillor Bhavna Gupta feels that one of the major reasons for the deteriorating condition of Panchkula is the fact that there are civic polls next year and the political war is at its peak.

“I learnt that the MLA once said that he wouldn’t let work done until there is a BJP mayor. He even told some newspaper that in the polls next year people would elect BJP councillors. So probably that is the reason that he isn’t pushing any development work for the city. But he should know that even he would be facing polls in 2019,” Gupta said.

On the fact that the majority of Panchkula councillors are affiliated to the Congress, she said, “Yes, that is the key reason why it has taken a toll on Panchkula’s development. The political fight should remain only till elections. I feel when one is elected, he or she should work after rising above political lines. It is unfortunate that the officers who are so educated and have to execute the work are also working under political pressure.”

In the last four-and-a-half months, Panchkula MC has got its fourth MC Commissioner, Rajesh Jogpal. The Commissioners say that the “environment in Panchkula MC is not conducive for working”. The back-to-back changing of Commissioners began from September 2016 when Lalit Siwach joined as the MC Commissioner but was shifted by Haryana government after he courted a controversy with the mayor.

On September 21, 2016, Lalit Siwach wrote to the then Divisional Commissioner over grievances filed by civic staffers, who had complained that they were being pressured over some works. The mayor appealed to the Punjab and Haryana High Court against Ankur Gupta, Lalit Siwach, Kalka MLA Latika Sharma and Panchkula MLA Gian Chand Gupta for obstructing her “cause of promoting transparency in the corporation”.

Siwach and Mayor Ahluwalia have been at loggerheads since then. Both had sent a number of complaints against each other to senior officials. The mayor, however, had said that he was acting on the directions of the local leadership.

The government transferred out Siwach on May 18, 2017, and then appointed Shaleen, a 2012-batch IAS officer as the new Panchkula MC Commissioner.

Shaleen too met with the same fate. He had written to the Haryana Chief Secretary that the environment in the Panchkula MC was not conducive for working and the mayor was threatening him.

The mayor had said that Shaleen too was playing in the hands of the local BJP leadership. Shaleen was later accused of threatening a scribe for writing about MC. Following protests by journalists, he was transferred out by the Haryana government in less than two months of his posting, that is on July 11, 2017.

Ashok Kumar Meena joined in place of Shaleen but he too was transferred out within two-and-a-half months of his posting. Now MC has got another MC Commissioner on September 21, Rajesh Jogpal.

For now, Jogpal is saying all the right things. He told Chandigarh Newsline that development of the city is a mandate which will never come in the conflict zone. He assured that within one month residents would not get to see any pothole.

“I agree people of Panchkula have lost pride in their own MC which was got elected by them. I am here to restore their faith. The patchwork has already begun and I assure within one month, they would not get to see any pothole on any stretch,” said Jogpal.

The new Commissioner has prepared a Facebook page as well where residents can post their grievances. “Those which don’t require much funds would be addressed immediately while others would be completed in a limited time frame,” he said.

Residents feel that the city has been neglected just for the sake of a political battle.

S K Nayar, president of Citizens’ Welfare Association, said, “So many accidents are taking place because of the damaged roads. Why do people have to suffer because of the ego clashes of two people?”

Residents have also taken up the task to caution people about the potholes by significantly encircling them with chalk dust and to draw the attention of the officials as well. A group, Youth4Swaraj, had initiated a week-long campaign ‘Mera Gaddhha, Mera Gaurav (My Pothole, My Pride)’. To draw the attention of officials, the group has been writing slogans on the potholes too.

The group loosely affiliated to leader Yogendra Yadav’s Swaraj India has even showered flowers to declare the roads dead.

Slogans like ‘Janta gaddhe mein’ were also written along some big potholes.

To involve more residents, the group asked residents to send photos of pits in their neighbourhood with the dimensions and location along with their identity to the WhatsApp number 9999993544 and anyone who decorates the pits would get an award.