Gurugram: No footpaths for pedestrians to walk along highway, DLF-1 residents fume

GURUGRAM: Notwithstanding crores being spent by various government agencies every year on augmenting the city’s road infrastructure, walking on pavements continues to be a challenge for Gurugrammers.
The residents of DLF-1, for instance, claim they hardly find a continuous, barrier-free stretch of pavement between gates numbers 4 and 6 of block A, B and C along the Gurugram-Faridabad highway. The reason: the fencing of the berm with metal nets and blade wires, which forces the residents of the township to walk on the roads braving the high-speed vehicles on the highway.
Rahul Chandola, RWA president of Block H, said, "Fencing the pavement for the sake of aesthetics has been serving no purpose, instead putting the lives of pedestrians at great risk. We have been urging the authorities to provide us with a proper walkaway on this stretch, considering the number of people who walk either to the Qutab Plaza market or Bristol Chowk and Sikanderpur metro station daily."
Residents have already approached the local councillor and the government officials and urged them to remove the encroachments at the earliest. They have also demanded footpaths on both sides of the highway between Kushboo Chowk and Bristol Chowk. "When there is already a green belt along the very same road, why eat up the space which is meant for pedestrians? How can the authorities allow such encroachments for landscaping and that too along a high-speed corridor like the Gurugram-Faridabad highway?" said Ritika Ratna, RWA joint secretary of the block.
When contacted, Sandeep Singh, the executive engineer of PWD, said that some residents of the area had approached the department for creating a green belt on the roadside berm. "We allowed them. But if the residents are raising objections, we have no problem getting the same removed from the berms. I will look into the complaints of the DLF-1 residents," he said.