One-year on, Gurugram development body yet to form resident advisory council

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), which was set up around a year ago, has not formed a resident advisory council (RAC) so far. According to the GMDA Act, the council will advise the authority on how to exercise its powers and perform its functions. In an RTI reply to city-based activist AseemTakkyar, the development body said the RAC had not been set up so far. An official of the GMDA, however, said the process for constituting the council was under way. “We have received applications from people who wish to become resident members of the council, and process for constitution of the council has already started,” said the official. GMDA has received 27 applications for the nomination of resident members, of which 11 applications are from resident welfare associations (RWAs). Another 11 have been received from industry representatives, two from developers, three from sarpanches and members of Nasscom. Besides these representatives, the council will also include commissioner of the municipal corporation, deputy commissioner, Huda chief administrator and other government officials. According to the GMDA Act, the RAC will monitor implementation of the annual plan for infrastructure development, mobility management and sustainable management of the urban environment. The RAC can also make suggestions for development plans. Besides RAC, GMDA is also supposed to set up three other committees for monitoring mobility plan, infrastructure plan and urban environment management plan. Infrastructure and mobility committees have not been constituted yet but the environment committee was set up in November. The committee would meet on a monthly basis and come up with recommendations for managing the city’s environment. The recommendations of the committee would then be submitted to the executive board of the GMDA for implementation.