With the aim of improving community center maintenance and providing residents with better services, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has decided to outsource 16 community centers to private agencies on a trial basis starting next month.
“The MCG has found that many community centers across the city are in poor condition and are not properly maintained. Therefore, we have decided to outsource the maintenance of the community centers to private agencies. Four community centers in each of the four zones will be outsourced on a trial basis starting next month,” said MCG Chief Engineer TL Sharma.
Sharma, who is overseeing the project, said it has all the necessary regulatory approvals. By next week, the Request for Proposal (RFP) will be published to invite agencies to apply for the project.
Sharma said during his tenure as chief engineer at Karnal and Kaithal he instituted the policy of outsourcing community centers to private agencies. “The outsourcing of community centers to private providers in Karnal and Kaithal was successful. So I decided to replicate the same thing in Gurugram. The idea is to offer better services to the public, like the gymkhanas,” said the chief engineer.
He further said that the MCG will limit the maximum price that a private agency can charge an individual for providing community center services. “All services in the community centers are provided at nominal rates, part of which also goes to the MCG,” Sharma said.
The poor condition of community centers is a major problem across the city, including in upscale areas like Golf Course Road, DLF Phase 4 and MG Road, officials said.
Due to its poor condition and lack of use, MCG’s community center near DLF Phase 4 gave way to the Museo Camera, Center for Photographic Arts, while the community center in Sector 42 near Golf Course Road was converted into MCG’s zone office, they said Officer .
In August 2020, then-MCG Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh acknowledged the poor maintenance of community centers across the city and ruled that all future house meetings would be held at a new community center each time. The reason for this move was that the MCG’s engineering wing would repair and upgrade facilities both inside and outside the community center before a house meeting takes place.
The MCG held only two house meetings at the community centers in Sector 27 and Sukhrali, after which they reverted to the house meeting system at John Hall in Civil Lines.
There are around 65 community centers under MCG jurisdiction, 35 of which are with MCG and 30 with Resident Welfare Associations (RWA).
“By outsourcing community centers to private agencies, they take away the ‘community’ element. The MCG should instead take over the community centers that are poorly maintained by RWAs and maintain them properly rather than handing them over to third parties,” said Dhruv Bansal, spokesman for the Gurgaon Citizens Council (GCC), an umbrella organization of all RWAs in the city.
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