Gurgaon’s ‘orphaned’ road gets a new name

Corporate honchos in Gurgaon’s Sector 18 appealed to employees to refrain from exercising their franchise while all and sundry were exhorting the country to vote this poll season.

Corporate honchos in Gurgaon’s Sector 18 appealed to employees to refrain from exercising their franchise while all and sundry were exhorting the country to vote this poll season.

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But the big bosses begged to differ. After all, it was to honour the renaming of Sahraul Road, which houses their offices, to Anaath (orphan) Road. A priest even chanted mantras and performed a havan on Thursday, as the guests gifted the orphan a signboard bearing its new name.

Later, the guests marched with placards on the 2.5 km-long potholed road, lined by industrial units and offices of national and global giants like Siemens, Pearl Pet, HCL and Tupperware, to make people aware why it was reborn.

The road was built in 1992, when a top UK delegation visited Gurgaon. But no government department had bothered to repair it after 2003. Thus it was an orphan.

Guest Keshav Sharma, a senior executive with IT multinational Agilant Technologies, said it was high time the government woke up to the problem and decided who owned this stretch of road.

“None of us should vote for the politicians as none of them came to our rescue and the condition of this road has continued to deteriorate,” he said.

Wadhawa Singh from Orient Craft Export House said all employees had accepted the company’s appeal to boycott the polls. “Neither Haryana Urban Development Authority, nor Public Works Department or Haryana State Infrastructure & Industrial Development Corporation have repaired this road and refused to own it on the pretext of jurisdiction,” he said.

Munish Vasudeva, spokesperson for global engineering major Siemens, said the company had made huge investments to set up its Gurgaon operations and had a strong presence in the city for more than a decade.

“All we expect from the concerned departments is the basic infrastructure that can help our employees commute comfortably,” he said.

Inder Mohan Puri, managing director of export house OTIE said the company had issued an advisory to all employees to boycott the polls.