Residents of National Games Housing Complex (NGHC) at Khelgaon had never thought that their dreams of living in a world-class housing complex will be shattered as soon as they move in their flats. Residents claimed that they were not getting a single facility as promised earlier by the builder while purchasing the flats from their hard earned money.
The construction company, however, maintained that the problems were temporary which could be fixed only after the society takes over the maintenance of the housing complex. “The place has become a hell for us as we are not getting anything in the name of facility….be it water, electricity, proper sewerage or maintenance of the complex etc,” said an old age resident of NGHC requesting anonymity. Despite repeated requests made to the builder’s representative by the residents verbally or through e-mails, they did not even try to take notice of it, added the resident.
According to a lady living on the seventh floor, the major problem is ill- maintenance of lift as most of them remain non-functional making it hard for those who are living above the first floor. A 62-year-old Professor, on June 15, had a close shave when he entered an empty lift from the first floor hitting hardly on the ground floor.“Condition for the residents gets even worse during the rainy seasons as water enters into some of the lifts making it stop in the midway leaving the people get stuck into it for several hours,” she said.
Besides, the stairway, which is the only alternative for them, does not get cleaned for several weeks, making it stink badly as there is no one to take care of it. “Since there is no one to look into these matters, stray dogs in several groups have created havoc for the residents,” said a lady resident.The residents have also been facing water crisis in their apartments for the last several days helplessly resorting to packaged drinking water even for bathing purposes. “We are not getting water supply in the complex and are fully dependent on bottled water. As we cannot get it from anywhere else, we are also using it for bathing which is putting an extra burden on our pocket,” said another lady who had come down looking for water supply van.
A reality check in the housing complex also demonstrated the pathetic condition of the housing complex where the fire fighting equipments were not found at right place, sewage water were oozing out from the chambers at the several entry points of the towers with dampened walls around the apartments. “It is really embarrassing for us when our relatives and friends visit our place,” said another flat owner.Marketing head for the National Games Housing Complex, on the other hand, claimed that these problems were temporary and everything will be alright once the society takes over the charge of the maintenance of the complex.
“All efforts are being made to take everything on track…..we are waiting for the society to get it registered formally,” said Marketing Head Ajay Sinha.According to Sinha, the society has already been constituted. “Jitney bhi problems hain..wo society ke nahin hone ki wajah se hai, ek baar ye society ko handover ho jayega…sab kuch theek hao jayega …… 1-2 mahine me ye kaam bhi pura ho jayega (All these problems are due to non-existence of society…once the complex is handed over to the society…no one will have any grievances…it will take another one or two months to get it handed over to the society),” said Sinha.
Sinha, however, alleged that the company was not able to maintain the lifts and street lights properly due to non-payment of maintenance by some of the residents. “It is not true that there is no light in the common places, street lights are functional at every alternate pole. It is being done to cut short the electricity bill as many of the residents do not pay monthly maintenance cost to the company without giving any proper reasons,” said Sinha. “Currently there is an overdraft of Rs 40 lakh of electricity bill,” said Sinha.
Accepting the fact that many of the lifts remain non-functional, he said that they immediately require to be done annual maintenance contract (AMC) with any agency which was not being done due to non-existence of the society. “Even though we have finalized the agency for the AMC, we cannot sign the contract with them. Once the society clears it .it will be handed over to the agency,” said Sinha.