Another year of deadline misses
Although crores of public money have been spent on projects, work is far from over.
For the Millennium City, 2012 is a year of missed deadlines.
From basic infrastructure projects such as water supply lines and intra-city transport options, to big-ticket plans such as the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway and the RapidMetro link, crores spent in the name of development are still to benefit the public.
In 2012, a whopping R2,722 crore was sanctioned by the Haryana government to improve the road network alone.
One among these much-awaited projects is the 135-km-long KMP Expressway. The link road has missed multiple deadlines, including the last on December 31, 2012. To date, work has been completed on 48-km stretch between Manesar and Palwal.
The R1,915 crore project was allotted to a concessionaire on November 14, 2005 on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis with an initial deadline of July 2008.
Similarly, the 18-km-long and 150-metre-wide Northern Peripheral Road (NPR or the Dwarka Expressway) missed its third deadline on December 31, 2012. Only an eight-km stretch is ready here.
The situation is no better for the 12-km-long Southern Peripheral Road (SPR). The project, which will connect the Gurgaon-Faridabad Road to NH-8, was to become operational by the end of December 2012. Litigation over a 2.5-km disputed stretch has been blamed for the delay.
"All road network projects are running at a snail's pace," said a senior official working with RITES, an engineering consultancy established by the Government of India.
And it's not just mega projects that have kept the public waiting.
In Gurgaon too, projects such the re-carpeting of the MG Road and construction of railway overbridges and flyovers along the NPR, SPR and Sohna Road are running behind schedule by six to nine months. "The plans remain on paper. The government is in no mood to expedite the procedure to move files," said a consultant involved in Sohna road widening project, on the condition of anonymity.
Even basic services have taken a hit in Gurgaon.
The government had planned to develop new sectors (58-115) five years ago but sanctioned R498 crore for sewerage lines in third quarter of 2012.
In older sectors (1-57), the government has managed to lay only 112 kms of sewer drains. "Here, about 80% of builder areas don’t have proper sewer connections as the existing pipelines are inadequate," said a retired public health chief engineer.
The much-hyped Rapid MetroRail Gurgaon, which was to be operational by January 2013, is now expected to meet the extended deadline of March or April this year.