What ails Gurgaon? Narrow roads, ramp encroachments and parking chaos exposed by HC panel

GURGAON: Narrow motorable roads, parking violations and house ramps and electrical installations occupying the internal stretches across the city — these formed part of the findings of a three-member joint commission constituted on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court.

On Saturday, the commission conducted the physical inspection of internal residential roads in parts of Gurgaon to verify their actual width and condition, a key issue in the public interest litigation (PIL) challenging Haryana's stilt-plus-four (S+4) construction policy.


The commission's findings are expected to play a crucial role when the HC hears the matter next on Feb 17, with potential implications for urban planning enforcement across Gurgaon and the wider NCR.

The panel visited around eight locations — six in DLF I and two in Sector 28 — measuring the metalled carriageway and the distance between opposing houses. Sources said the HC's order pertains specifically to two locations inspected during the exercise.

According to officials familiar with the inspection, roads in DLF I have a wall-to-wall width of about 12 metres, but the motorable, metalled portion on the ground was found to range between four metres and 4.8 metres. In Sector 28, while the sanctioned right of way — the legal privilege of a road user — is 10 metres, the metalled carriageway measured only 3.9 metres to 4 metres at various points.

“The commission’s report, supported by on-site photographs, notes that vehicles parked along the narrow carriageways severely restrict movement, making it difficult for two cars to pass simultaneously. It also records that although the overall corridor between boundary walls measures 10 to 12 metres, a significant portion is occupied by house ramps, electrical installations, sewerage and drainage lines, water pipelines and trees, leaving limited space for vehicular movement,” counsel for the petitioner Nivedita Sharma said.

Representatives of the Haryana govt, the town and country planning department, the district legal services authority and counsels for the petitioner were present during the site visit.

The panel was formed after a division bench led by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry observed that rival claims over road widths could not be resolved without a spot inspection to establish ground realities.

The road-width dispute lies at the heart of the PIL against the S+4 policy. Petitioners have argued that "road" should mean the motorable carriageway available for vehicles, not the entire right of way that includes green verges and service areas.

They have claimed that narrow carriageways hamper the movement of fire tenders, ambulances and garbage collection vehicles, posing safety risks in densely populated neighbourhoods.

The petition also alleges that vertical densification triggered by the S+4 policy has worsened traffic congestion, parking shortages and pressure on civic infrastructure, while unauthorised ramps and encroachments have steadily reduced usable road space.

Developer groups and planning officials, however, maintain that approved norms define road width as the entire corridor between plots and that the metalled portion is only one component of it.