The Times of India 30.08.2010
Tale of three towns
PANCHKULA: It has been five months since Panchkula was declared a municipal corporation by the Haryana government, but residents are yet to witness the benefits as the city has still to shrug off its past.
With majority of projects hanging fire, people are waiting for the day when development would start taking place.Leave aside the Panchkula city, the situation is worse in adjoining Pinjore and Kalka, which too have been brought under the ambit of the municipal corporation.
Dilapidated roads, presence of stray cattles and dogs, poor maintenance of streetlights, unkept parks and insanitation are crying for attention not only in adjoining Kalka and Pinjore but also in Panchkula city. which was once dubbed as the Paris of Haryana.
Crumbling civic infrastructure has left the residents of Panchkula-Pinjore-Kalka ponder whether the decision of the state government to expand the municipal limits was right. Many feel that it was a political decision rather than one based on ground realities.
After completing the formality of announcing corporation status for the city, which left the existing municipal council defunct, the government to date has made no efforts to appoint a municipal commissioner or to hold elections to ensure development at grassroots level, depriving the residents of their basic rights.
The adhoc arrangement of giving the charge of municipal commissioner to the deputy commissioner too has not worked well. With local bodies falling under the jurisdiction of the corporation standing dissolved, even the minor projects related to betterment of the area have been put on backburner.
Residents who are complaining about missing civic amenities are waiting for the announcement of elections and the appointment of commissioner but the state government is yet to give any indication on this front. Officials, however, maintained that it could take around two years to hold the elections.
The staff of the now defunct municipal council, which has been transferred to the corporation, is still working from rented premises as the civic body does not have its own building.
Since long the residents have been demanding better maintenance of streetlights, but their requests have fallen on deaf ears. Witnessing rising incidents of chain snatchings, residents are blaming non-functional streetlights for this. The officials themselves admit that 30% of the streetlights are not working.
Another major problem is of stray cattle. It is not uncommon to find stray cattle on all the major roads in Panchkula, Pinjore and Kalka and many a time, it has led to fatal accidents. But even these casualties have failed to force the authorities from speeding up the process to tackle the problem.
In 2008, a proposal for the construction of a common cattle pound was passed with the objective to solve the problem in adjoining Pinjore and Kalka also and for this a 12-acre plot was also identified in Pinjore and fund of Rs 1.5 crore was also approved. But till date the proposal has failed to move beyond the papers.
While the population of Panchkula has increased manifold in the last few years and massive construction has taken place, the civic body and the state government have failed to make any efforts to provide adequate fire stations to safeguard human life and property. At present only one fire station is catering to the entire Panchkula district.
Some three years back, in 2007, the then municipal council had passed a resolution to build three more fire stations in Panchkula at Industrial area, in Mansa Devi complex and on other side of Ghaggar bridge where sectors 26, 27 and 28 have already come up. But till date proposal is lying in the files only.
B B Singhal, former vice-president of Panchkula municipal council said tall claims of Haryana government have fallen flat as living conditions in Panchkula have worsened over the period of time.
Echoing similar sentiments, Sameer Sethi, a Panchkula-based advocate, said that earlier people used to approach local municipal councillors for better development but now no one is there who could be contacted.
