Martin Abbott
above, from left to right: an array of building conditions showing unfinished work, stagnant water problems, dangerous conditions, relentless development.
In stark contrast to Bawana and the JJ Colony, the private sector rules supreme in Gurgaon, an upper- class refuge a world away on the southern edge of Delhi in the neighbouring state of Haryana. Built by private developers for prominent multinational tenants, the area is defined by soaring towers and enormous malls. Despite its upmarket intentions, Gurgaon suffers from many of the same urban dilemmas facing Bawana. Although the paved roads are wide, foresight and planning are in short supply – water and sanitation issues are emerging as major problems as the population grows. The Central Ground Water Board of the Union Ministry of Water Resources reckons Gurgaon will have depleted its water resources by 2017. 5 Yet inside these residential compounds, the grass is green and swimming pools are kept full using rapidly diminishing ground water resources. For the moment, Gurgaon is ploughing ahead with development and construction sites dot the cityscape, including additions to the Metro, a lifeline that connects the district to the rest of the city. Wandering around in this part of town is nigh impossible; distance is exaggerated by the lack of any amenties. It is dry and desolate beyond the high security walls that seal off the compounds, footpaths stop and start and cars rule. It is the luxurious scale of the new apartments with multiple bathrooms, bedrooms and living spaces that is altogether different to other parts of Delhi. Enormous air-conditioned strip malls line the streets and attract an aspirational clientele only too willing to shop. It is this construction sector, consuming rapidly declining water resources, that should spark fear.
Gurgaon, an environment that seems to have been founded to encourage excess consumption, requires untold quantities of water and electricity to sustain it. When the electricity fails, as it does regularly in summer, the generators begin. And to compensate for a lack of water, many have dug private wells that only exacerbate a crisis with the potential to ruin this ‘mini-Singapore’. Any improved urban amenity these individual complexes offer to residents extends only as far as the compound walls. Beyond lie the dusty plains and construction sites that stretch to the horizon. * According to the Government of India, there is an increasing shortage of urban housing in the order of 19 million units. 6 As a largely rural population continues its flight to the city in search of work and access to government services, it is forcing unprecedented urbanisation. Bawana, defined by inadequate planning, is slowly suffocating its inhabitants; unsustainable Gurgaon is an environmental disaster brought on by greed. Neither of these two models will do. Ethically, government agencies as well as private companies should be made to adhere to more stringent regulations. Outcomes cannot be based only on economic arguments but must include sustainable development in the true sense of the term; otherwise, the rapid urbanisation that India is experiencing, and will continue to experience in the coming decades, will only exacerbate social and environmental unsustainability. c
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5 Samantha De Bendern “Faulty Towers.” Motherland, no.9 (May 2013): 20 6 Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Report of the Technical Group on Urban Housing Shortage. New Delhi, India: Government of India, 2012. p 4
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