Issues and interest started fading with the passage of time

GURGAON: From waiving the much-proposed property tax to providing proper sanitation, streetlighting, garbage collection and even meeting power demand were some of the promises made by the present councillors when they were election candidates wooing their voters last June.
However, after the House of the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon took shape with the mayor's election, and voters' were expecting their hopes to be fulfilled, all the promises started getting diluted.Over the months, the monthly meetings ceased to be held monthly and got lost in trivial issues.
Issues such as putting up of signboards displaying the names of councillors in their wards entered the agendas of MCG meetings. The apparent aim was to show MCG officials in bad light. Councillors started working against MCG office bearers, thereby eliciting non-cooperation from them.
During the election campaign, the councillors representing the HUDA sectors and private colonies had promised to resolve issues like garbage collection, sanitation and water supply, which were essentially beyond their scope of work. The MCG officials refused to make expenditures in these areas unless these were under the MCG's jurisdiction. The debate on the matter remains pending so far.
This leaves the councillors with only villages and some colonies in the old city which was earlier a part of the Municipal Council.
The councillors in wards under HUDA sectors and privately developed colonies have made more trips to these offices rather than being able to settle and contribute to development works in their wards.
The councillors have failed to deliver important elements of infrastructure such as multilevel parking spaces and flyovers to ease congestion at busy intersections in the old city to date.
Issues like ensuring women's safety, beautification of MCG areas and bus shelters which would make a great difference to the residents as well as office-goers are not even discussed in the house meetings. Facilities as basic as maintenance of parks, provision of public conveniences and construction of rainwater harvesting structures and community centres became forgotten subjects at House meetings.
Even when works such as laying of stormwater drains are taken up in some parts of the city, commuters are subjected to untold inconvenience as dug-up stretches of roads are left as they are. The stormwater drains are already filled with garbage and there is no effort made to clean them before the onset of the monsoon.
The anti-encroachment drive in Sadar Bazaar which was "initiated" by the MCG inspired by HUDA's successful anti-encroachment drive in different parts of the city, was not carried to its logical conclusion.
The only worthwhile job done so far by the councillors has been the construction of concrete roads but these roads are restricted to villages in their wards.