Monday, January 12, 2009

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP TO RECLAIM GURGAON'S GREEN BELT

Sumi Sukanya, Gurgaon, January 11, 2009
The Times of India

Many believe Gurgaon was never this clean. The joint effort of Gurgaon administration and the software company National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), to reclaim Gurgaon's green belt seems to have brought in encouraging results. In a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership, the two have taken on a massive drive in the city to remove illegal encroachments, hoardings, dhabas and vendors, in DLF cyber city and electronic city Udyog Vihar.

The operation, which includes removing encroachment from the national highway as well, is on since the last four days. This initiative came after the software industry offered to collaborate with the Gurgaon administration to help solve infrastructure problems. Following this, a multi-agency task force was constituted, headed by additional deputy commissioner Praveen Kumar, comprising of authorities from Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), Municipal Corporation, Dakshin Haryan Bijli Vitaran Nigam Ltd (DHBVN), district and town planning, water supply department and Nasscom.

The taskforce had taken rounds of DLF cyber city and Udyog Vihar, which have a concentration of information technology enabled services. It identified and discovered various patches marred with illegal encroachments, including hoardings, illegally operating dhabas, property dealers, parking lots etc.