Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
It was suggested at the time that the owners were being forced out in order to make
them move to a new mall that was being built nearby. Later, it was alleged that the then
chief justice of India had authorized the demolition 'around the time that his sons got into
partnerships with mall and commercial complex developers, who stood to benefit from his
tidy up the sites after the front of the buildings had been hacked by its mobile cranes and
diggers. Seven years later, the buildings still stand semi demolished on a major highway,
looking as though bombs had hit them.
18
Buccaneering Gurgaon
Restrictions on development in Delhi led to growing pressure for office space and homes
in authorized developments, which eventually burst outside the city to what are now the
satellites of Gurgaon in Haryana, Noida in Uttar Pradesh, and beyond. Noida began as an
industrial development by the Uttar Pradesh state government, which drew up an overall
master plan that provided fast highways and open areas, plus good water supplies because
it lies in the relatively water-rich Gangetic flood plain. Diverting from the planners' inten-
tions, it rapidly expanded into residential and commercial development, and is now a thriv-
ing though chaotic conurbation providing jobs and homes for over 650,000 people. Like
Delhi itself, it is beset by predictable crony capitalism on land deals, poor governance, and
law and order problems.
Gurgaon should be a showpiece for modern India. It epitomizes the country's rapid
growth and economic success with stylish buildings housing top multinationals as well as
Indian information technology and industrial businesses. There are masses of blocks of
flats to accommodate the aspirational young, plus shopping malls, night clubs and golf
courses, and Delhi airport is nearby. But it is not a showpiece. Instead it is an unplanned,
uncoordinated concrete and plate glass jungle. A total lack of infrastructure planning has
led to failing water supplies and drainage and sewerage systems, plus a lack of organized
parking facilities, all spelling disaster in the next decade unless there is a dramatic change.
Originally there was just an old village here, together with (since the end of the 1970s)
the factories of Maruti, India's largest car manufacturer. A mixed bag of developers, with
varying degrees of ethics (or lack of them), moved into what till then had been undeveloped
farmlands, buying up and agglomerating small plots from the locals, and getting together
with local politicians to bully landowners and obtain permissions. It started with residen-
tial developments for people to escape from Delhi, followed by modern office blocks of a
quality that Delhi lacked, and then mushroomed with mixed developments. A master plan
was superimposed, but it came too late to solve water and sewage problems.
