Ghaziabad civic body raises demand for funds to take over three services in Indirapuram

The Ghaziabad municipal corporation has raised a demand of about ₹42 crore from the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) against the capital and operating expenditure of the three services.

Discussions are presently underway between the GDA and the municipal corporation for the handover of three services of Indirapuram township to the civic body, namely horticulture, streetlights and cleaning activities.

The deliberations for the handover of Indirapuram to the municipal corporation took almost 10 years and on May 21, the corporation board gave the nod for the partial takeover of services from the GDA.

“The funds demanded include the capital and operating expenditure on these services and also includes two years of maintenance. There are some gaps in the infrastructure which need to be plugged before the takeover is complete. We need around ₹42 crore and discussions will be held before the final amount is chalked out,” said Mahendra Singh Tanwar, Ghaziabad municipal commissioner.

GDA officials said that they maintain about 104 parks and nearly 7,700 streetlights in Indirapuram and they will be handed over to the civic body.

The Indirapuram township is located close to the Delhi border and saw rapid housing and commercial development in the 1990s and has around 80,000 households. The locality is under the GDA, which provides key services in the area that has seven residential wards.

The process of handover was discussed several times by the two agencies during the last few years but could not move forward as the civic body alleged gaps in sewerage and water supply infrastructure.