Without Manpower, MCG Not Keen On Charge

Gurgaon: The first phase of the transfer of Huda sectors to MCG will take place amid confusion and protests on Saturday, creating a situation where civic services for thousands of residents are left in a no man's land.
Huda employees in charge of civic duties and protesting against their transfer to the MCG along with the sectors refused to call off their strike but the government decided to stick to the April 30 handover deadline for 22 sectors.As a result, on Saturday, Huda will hand over sanitation, maintenance of internal water supply, sewerage and stormwater drains, streetlights, parks and internal roads to the MCG.
But the 900-odd Huda staff involved in these jobs won't be available to the MCG because of the ongoing strike. And with the MCG itself skeletally staffed, it means these basic civic functions will go unattended till the Haryana government can convince the Huda staff to call off their strike and move to MCG. The only function that won't be affected is sanitation because it has been outsourced to private companies who use their own workers. Huda had considered handing over only the sanitation function to MCG but decided to go ahead with all other services in a last-minute change of mind.
The absence of coordination between the two agencies was evident on the eve of the transfer deadline as a meeting called to iron out the rough edges lasted barely an hour, ending inconclusively as both MCG chief T L Satyaprakash and Huda administrator Hardeep Singh were absent. Additional municipal commissioner Amit Khatri chaired the meeting, but left midway as executive engineers of Huda and MCG spoke over each other - the Huda side eager to get the civic duties off their back and the MCG quarter reluctant to accept it in the current situation.
"We came ready with files of each sector that is to be handed over to MCG and the files contained all the relevant documents needed for MCG to understand the state of affairs in each of these sectors," said a Huda official present at the meeting. "MCG officials requested us to carry on with maintenance for three months, so the transition can be smooth," the official added.
An MCG official said Huda was told at the meeting it would have to keep its civic gloves on for now. "We asked Huda to continue supervising civic work in the transition period. We will conduct joint field visits to get a hang of the process," the official said. The deadline for the second phase of the sector transfer is May 15 when 24 more sectors, mostly in new Gurgaon, will pass to MCG.