GMDA Reclaims 49.5 km This Week, Turns Drive to Footpaths and Cycle Tracks

GURUGRAM: Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority teams reclaimed 49.5 kilometres of right of way this week and shifted the anti-encroachment drive from arterial blacktop to footpaths, cycle tracks and walkways, 23 days after the authority told the Supreme Court it would clear illegal occupation in its jurisdiction within two weeks.

Heavy machinery and multi-department squads worked on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. They cut permanent sheds, concrete ramps and scrap shops that had eaten into the public strip. Right of way here means the land reserved for the road, the footpath, utilities and emergency access — not the shopfront that spilled onto it.

Monday’s tally was 16 km, taken in rain, across Sectors 30 to 41, Sohna Road and Sectors 60 to 67. Wednesday scaled up to 18.5 km with a brief to free pedestrian and cycle space. A GMDA spokesperson said illegal boards, slum clusters and vendor carts came off MG Road, Gwal Pahari Road and Sectors 27 and 28. On Golf Course Road and Vyapar Kendra Road, teams pulled iron grills and pushed shop goods back off the walking line.

Thursday added 15 km. Bulldozers brought down commercial sheds that had come 10 to 15 feet onto Basai Road after residents complained of bottlenecks. More than 10 earthmovers worked Sectors 101 to 106, clearing scrap yards, unauthorised nurseries and concrete ramps on public land.

GMDA chief executive P.C. Meena has ordered post-demolition watch on the cleared stretches, the usual weak point once the machines leave. The authority has also opened a public portal for geo-tagged complaints on road, footpath, green-belt and drain encroachments, so that the next tea stall is not only found when a squad happens to pass.

The week’s 16 km, 18.5 km and 15 km add up to the 49.5 km figure officials shared. It does not mean every footpath in those sectors is now clear. It means those kilometres were walked with machines and the obvious sheds came down. Occupation that returns overnight is the reason Meena has tied field reports to the new portal and to cameras where they exist.

Running alongside the road work, Madholia’s DTCP wing has warned that stilt parking turned into rooms or shops will be sealed. That is a building-plan case, not a right-of-way case, but it is the same court brief: public and common space is not private floor plate.

For walkers on Golf Course Road and cyclists on the 60s sectors, the test is whether the iron grill and the crate of goods stay off the pavement next week. GMDA’s own portal is the channel it has offered to report the ones that return.