Delhi NCR has always been one of
the prime real estate markets in India. The location has its own advantages.
Apart from being the hub of all political activities, it is a cluster of major
cities which, together house offices of almost all the major companies
operating in India. Though NCR is expanded to many miles, it is primarily five
cities which comprise the majority of its operations. The cities are Delhi,
Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.
Indeed, together these cities
enjoy great strengths, but what about them when compared individually! Out of
all these, Gurgaon and Noida are the two important cities which have done
fairly well in last one-one and half decades. Though Gurgaon had location
advantages since the beginning which helped it emerge as a preferred
destination for MNCs, it has started losing its charm due to lack of basic
amenities. Noida, on the other hand, has picked up momentum in last few years;
many MNCs have shifted their corporate base to Noida and Greater Noida due to
well structured urban planning.
Urban planning is one of the very
important aspects that decide the course of development of a city. It involves
a technical and political process concerned with the development and use of
land, protection, and use of the environment, public welfare, and the design of
the urban environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing
into and out of urban areas such as transportation, communications, and
distribution networks. Overall, it is the process to design and develop the
foundation of a city. The recent incident of water logging in Gurgaon where the
entire city came to a standstill for more than 20 hours is the best example of
poor Urban Planning.
Generally, it is the
responsibility of Department of Town and Country Planning to design and develop
these amenities. In Gurgaon, this responsibility, somehow, shifted to developers.
Whereas, in Noida the authority develops the road, drainage, sewer and other
infrastructures. Once these are done, the land is allotted to the
developer.
Noida is far ahead in terms of
basic infrastructure a city requires. It can safely be compared with
Chandigarh, one of the best-planned cities in India. It only lacked supporting
infrastructures like Metro Rail, airport and highways. Fortunately, all these
developments are happening in Noida as well. The city has operation Metro Rail
connectivity, three highways passing through it and a proposed international
airport in Jewar, 72 Kms away from Noida.
With these infrastructures in
place and better planned urban amenities, Noida and Greater Noida are giving a tough
fight to Gurgaon. Unfortunately, once termed as ‘Millennium City’, Gurgaon is
slowly getting buried under its own mess.
