High-Tech Delhi Suburb Stuck in 'Village Time Warp':

By Rama Lakshmi
Special to The Washington Post Sunday, February 20, 2005

GURGAON, India -- Five years ago, Saurabh Chawla, a young corporate strategist, moved out of cramped and polluted New Delhi to the open spaces of suburban Gurgaon, seeking a better quality of life. As scores of software companies and call centers set up shop there, the rural outstretch hugging the capital also became a high-tech hub. Settlers like Chawla hoped Gurgaon could become a city of the future. But today, despite the array of glitzy air-conditioned super-malls, two-car homes and sleek glass high-rise offices, Gurgaon residents groan about corruption, bad governance, poor roads and inadequate power and water: the same ills that plague rural India.

"This was to be a world-class city of professionals, with the software companies, call centers and multinational giants setting up base here," said Chawla, 41. "Software outsourcing companies manage the London road traffic sitting right here in Gurgaon, but we cannot manage the chaos on our own roads." Members of Gurgaon's restless new middle class say their urban concerns may have been overlooked because of their location at the tip of a large, rural region. "Those of us who came to Gurgaon have different needs," Chawla said, speaking of his suburban dream. "But the local administration and the old-style politicians here are stuck in a village time warp of caste and religion and fail to share our vision of the future."

The new suburb, located just inside the agricultural state of Haryana, is emerging as a unique battleground for an urban-rural war of aspirations and sensibilities. While Gurgaon was recently ranked one of the most promising high-tech cities in India, people in the old sleepy villages that dot the surrounding landscape claim they have gained little from the boom. When Haryanans went to the polls Feb. 3 to vote for members of the state assembly, the conflict burst into the open, with 86 resident groups in Gurgaon fielding their own independent candidates against the traditional politicians, who tend to woo voters in the villages. The results are expected to be announced the last week of February. The influx of about 300,000 settlers in recent years has put tremendous pressure on the fragile rural infrastructure of Gurgaon. Fancy homes, condominiums, malls, multiplex cinemas and high-rises housing some of India's top outsourcing operations now dominate the suburban skyline. Many condominiums sporting such Westernized names as "Beverly Hills Park," "Princeton Estate" and "Windsor Park" have edged out farmlands and cattle sheds. PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, IBM and GE Capital now have facilities in Gurgaon. About 80 percent of foreign investment that the state has attracted is concentrated in this suburb. A recent study, conducted by an outsourcing consulting firm called NeoIT, ranked Gurgaon as the most preferred outsourcing and high-tech destination in India. But the lack of planning to support New Delhi's population spillage into the sleepy farmlands has begun to show. According to the Central Ground Water Board, 70 percent of Gurgaon's water needs are met through groundwater, and the water table is dropping at an alarming rate each year. Power supply is irregular, and many of the malls and offices run on diesel generators. There is no mass transportation between Gurgaon and New Delhi, no organized waste disposal, poor drainage and only partial connections to sewer lines.

"To put Gurgaon on the world map, we want 24-hour electricity, adequate water supply, better roads and policing," said Sanjay Kaul, who heads People's Action, a lobbying group for the suburban residents. "There is a difference in the aspirations of the educated, English-speaking, upwardly mobile middle class that rushed to Gurgaon and that of its original villagers. Their politics is different. They want free electricity and farm subsidies. They want status quo. We want to change things."

The new residents' candidate, Ratan Singh, a former army officer, spoke about a novel kind of suburban politics taking root in Gurgaon. "With our vision, we will turn Gurgaon into a dream city and drive the old politics away," he said. Three miles away, however, the residents of Bajghera, a farming village of 700 homes, complained that the satellite township's dreamy makeover has brought them little.

"All that shine is for the city people only," said Deepak Rana, 25, a jobless college graduate and farmer's son. He said that one-third of the family's farmland had been sold to developers. "I don't speak English, so I applied for the job of security guard in the malls. I did not get even get a call," he said. Making matters worse, untreated sewage water has begun flowing in to the village from the new neighborhoods in the past four months. Gurgaon has only two sewage treatment plants, woefully inadequate to support the growing influx of new residents. "It is ruining our wheat crops and spreading diseases. There is a foul smell all day," said Bhim Singh Choudhury, 78, a wheat farmer, angrily twirling his moustache. "Are we not human beings? Why should their dirty water come into our villages? What kind of world-class city is this?" When the incumbent legislative assembly member for Gurgaon, Gopi Chand Gehlot, arrived in Bajghera recently, the villagers danced to a drumbeat. Then the farmers tied a green turban on Gehlot's bowed head, as veiled women peeped out from the windows of their homes.

"I know the value of this turban. Now your honor is mine," said Gehlot, promising to build two new sewage treatment plants if reelected. "We will vote for a leader who understands and respects our village life," Choudhury said.