‘Was long due…’: 7,500 illegal structures razed in five-day drive in upscale Gurgaon | Delhi News
Amid the rubble of cement and fallen trees, a man in a sun hat, white mask and sunglasses stood beside an earthmover. He ordered the earthmover operator to raze an alleged illegal structure built along a road in DLF Phase 1 — one of Gurgaon’s most upscale neighbourhoods.
The man giving the orders is District Town Planner (DTP) (Enforcement) Amit Madholia. He oversaw a five-day anti-encroachment drive from April 18 to 22, spanning eight privately licensed colonies in Gurgaon — the majority along the upscale Golf Course Road area. The operation resulted in the demolition of over 7,500 structures and the recovery of more than 200 km of roads that had allegedly been encroached upon by private occupants, officials said.
The drive carried out by the city’s Town and Country Planning (Enforcement) Department (DTCP) and supervised by Madholia saw the deployment of earthmovers to raze alleged illegal extended lawns, permanent guard rooms, and paved ramps across these colonies, officials said.
The drive came in the wake of the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s April 2 interim stay on stilt-plus-4-storey constructions. Additional Chief Secretary Anurag Agarwal had, on April 17, directed all concerned departments to ensure the immediate removal of encroachments from Right of Way (ROW) areas and strict compliance with building norms, seeking a detailed report by April 22.
By leading the drive, Madholia, appointed as Gurugram’s DTP in early 2024 saw one of the sharpest enforcement pushes in the city in recent times.
“Our teams have worked tirelessly to clear 216 km of road that had been occupied by illegal structures for years,” Madholia said. “This action is part of a time-bound mandate to restore the city’s infrastructure. We gave people the opportunity to remove encroachments voluntarily. Now, strict action will continue without any exemptions.”
His remarks come against the backdrop of opposition from several Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), which have decried the drive, alleging that they were not granted sufficient notice. The drive was executed by eight coordinated enforcement teams and targeted the capture of public green areas and utility corridors, officials said.
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According to officials, the drive was carried out to reclaim the city’s ROW from private encroachment, clearing up nearly 215 km of road length, originally planned at widths of 9 to 24 metres, which had, over the years, shrunk into cramped passageways due to illegal constructions.
As the drive concluded this week, the visual landscape of colonies like DLF Phase 1 and 2, South City 1, Palam Vihar, and Sushant Lok had been visibly altered.
With the DTCP having concluded this phase, the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) on Friday announced a large-scale demolition drive scheduled to run from April 27 to July 1. According to officials, the drive will be backed by a duty magistrate and 100 police personnel. HSVP estate officers have formed multiple teams to clear roads of encroachment and dismantle illegal structures, including kitchen gardens, pushcarts, and elevated house ramps, across 29 HSVP sectors in the city, officials said.
While some RWAs have expressed criticism over the loss of community infrastructure built outside plot boundaries, several civic experts and residents have come out in support of the drive.
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Sarika Panda Bhatt, co-founder of the Raahgiri Foundation, an NGO, highlighted the severe social cost of overlooking encroachments by the elite while pushing for walkable neighbourhoods.
“It is not just carts that encroach, but private property too. Nothing should obstruct pedestrians, and this was long due,” Bhatt said.
“It is disheartening to walk through Gurgaon’s residential blocks and see how public land is systematically ‘claimed’ by private villas. We label a street vendor an ‘encroacher’ for trying to earn a living, but we ignore the villa owner who absorbs the public footpath into their garden. In these very colonies, domestic help and children walking to government schools are forced into the path of traffic because their designated walking space has been stolen.”
Residents, she stressed, must stop viewing public space as surplus land for private expansion. Bhawani Shankar Tripathy, a resident of Sector 23A and a vocal supporter of the drive, explained the legal framework surrounding the ROW.
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“The ROW comprises the carriageway and the utility areas on both sides. Not an inch of space outside a property’s designated boundary wall belongs to the homeowner,” Tripathy noted. “The government maintains total control over the ROW to lay and maintain utility services. Public spaces are strictly for public usage. Ramps connecting the road to a house must be flat, must end before the road edge, and cannot consume road space. Authorities can break private ramps to access utility lines, and residents have no legal standing to object.”
