The last-mile gap: When you pay all your taxes but it’s not the govt’s job to build roads

GURUGRAM: The government builds the road, lays the water and drainage lines. You buy a house and pay your taxes. This is how you have always known towns and cities to have developed.

Then one fine day, you decide to buy a new house in a different place but are told you will have to build the portion of the road that passes in front of your house. You agree because you are being offered some incentives. But after moving in, you realize the road is incomplete because your neighbour wasn’t ready to do the same. So, despite paying your taxes and doing everything by the rule book, you find yourself marooned for no fault of yours.





On a much larger scale, this is exactly what has happened in the new sectors of Gurugram. While planning the expansion of the city, a policy was introduced in the Gurugram-Manesar Master Plan 2031, which was notified in 2012, that decided to liberate the government from the responsibility of building internal roads in the sectors.

That job was given to private developers, who bought huge land parcels to build group housing societies. A carrot was held out as incentive — of free additional floor area ratio (FAR) equivalent to the area of the road built (additional FAR means more built-up area is allowed).

But soon after, real estate went into a slump from which it is yet to recover. Flats got delayed by years and many realtors fell on hard times because they had invested aggressively in land and launched multiple projects anticipating a bull run. Forget roads, many were left with no money to even complete existing projects.

As a result, scores of residential societies in the new sectors along Dwarka Expressway and Southern Peripheral Road have turned into islands because, if one developer has built a portion of a road it was supposed to, another hasn’t. That’s why the ride to and from home is on a mix of paved and ‘kuchcha’ roads.





Approach roads to many housing societies in sectors 58-115 are just narrow muddy paths. In some places, the quality of the road built by the developer was so poor that it disintegrated over a few seasons. It’s a common sight in these parts to see internal roads (the 24-metre-wide roads in the Master Plan) end abruptly.

The master roads, or the main 60-metre-wide sector roads that connect the residential colonies with SPR and Dwarka Expressway are in a better state because Huda is building them, as mandated by the Master Plan, in lieu of external and internal development taxes collected from realtors, a charge that is eventually passed on to all homebuyers.

But how does one get to the master road if there is no internal road? It’s baffling that policymakers failed to see this. “The government policy has left a lot of scope for manipulation. On a given stretch, there might be different projects owned by different developers. While one developer, who has delivered a project, might be ready to invest in building roads, the others might not be ready yet and everyone is in a soup as a result,” said a city-based developer, who did not wish to be named.

In Sector 62, for example, a developer has given possession but the approach road is in a poor state as another developer with a stake in the project refused to build its portion. In Sector 109, the road outside residential society Brisk Lumbini ends abruptly, at the point where another private residential project starts. “Since the main internal road connecting the society to the sector road is blocked, we have to take the revenue road, which is in such bad condition that it can lead to fatal accidents, especially during monsoon. Even school buses refuse to come here and we have to drive halfway to the school from where the bus picks up kids,” said Rajat Sharma, a resident of Sector 109.

There are also several instances of a part of the land on which a road is supposed to be built being owned by a private individual. This happened because, unlike Huda sectors 1-57 where the urban development authority owned land and planned utilities accordingly, land for the new sectors was acquired entirely by developers. Those who did not want to sell held on to their plots, precipitating the current situation. Huda does not intervene because it has no stake.

Such an issue cropped up in Sector 69 where most of the land is owned by Unitech. According to sources, Unitech had sold a portion of a road to a landlord who threatened to build a boundary wall around it. However, the matter was later resolved by the developer. But some landowners don’t want to part with their land for any price. “We have been continuously engaging with the government at the senior-most level for policy intervention, enabling acquisition of land for internal roads in the new sectors. However, nothing much has happened yet,” said another developer, requesting anonymity.

Gaurav Mittal, managing director of CHD Developers, said, “The dire need of the hour is to work towards better roads here, considering the city has become one of the main real estate hubs in the country.” The approach road to CHD Avenue in Sector 71 is owned by a private individual and CHD is facing obstacles in acquiring land for developing it.

A senior Huda official admitted the connectivity problem could spell big trouble later, when more people started moving in. “If the developers have raised the concern with the state government, we are sure it will be addressed soon,” the official said.

(With inputs from Bagish Jha)