Urban body plan bites dust

Haryana Government?s grand plan of setting up a separate urban development authority for Gurgaon has hit another roadblock, reports Navneet Sharma.

Haryana Government’s grand plan of setting up a separate urban development authority for Gurgaon has hit another roadblock.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had last year cleared the proposal but the plan got delayed due to bureaucratic differences.

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Last week, the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) on Urban Affairs and Infrastructure Development called an emergency meeting to resolve the issue but they failed  to come up with a solution.

Chief Secretary Prem Prashant was also present at the meeting. While a section of the state bureaucracy favors the separate authority for Gurgaon on the pattern of Noida Area Development Authority, officials of Town and Country Planning and Industries Department have reservations in this regard. The two departments are advocating decentralisation of powers to their officers instead of a parallel set-up .

The Committee of Secretaries has constituted a group under the Chief Town Planner to study the  the  pros and cons of establishing the proposed authority.

“There are similar set-ups in Hyderabad and Bangalore. The group would also study the models adopted by the authorities in these cities,” a top ranking official told HT.

The CoS on Urban Affairs and Infrastructure Development comprises Secretaries of Town and Country Planning, Power, Urban Development, PWD (B&R) and Industries Departments.

The plan has been pending for a while. Hooda, in a meeting with industrialists last year, had promised an early solution to the issue.

In 2002-03, the Chautala Government had talked of the need for a separate body for Gurgaon, but it did not materialize.

Later, it contemplated setting up a Gurgaon-Faridabad Leisure Valley Development Authority to develop the hilly area between Gurgaon and Faridabad into a money-spinning leisure valley with mega facilities for recreation, entertainment and sporting activities.

The draft of the “Gurgaon-Faridabad Leisure Valley Development Authority Bill’ was also finalized. But the plan never took off. Hooda hopes that the CoS will come up with a feasible solution soon.