We're back to bijli, sadak, paani

A head of elections, fierce debates have broken out in resident welfare associations (RWAS) in the country's most famous high-tech Millennium City that somehow manages to thrive on the most low-tech quality of civic infrastructure.

The argument is to vote or not to vote given the deteriorating state of Gurugram; to do your duty as a citizen or to expect elected officials to do theirs.

Undoubtedly, the city, which started from pretty minimal standards of civic amenities in the first place, has hit a new low: Garbage going nowhere, roads that make village lanes look like Formula 1 tracks, noxious overflowing sewers, water shortages despite a fortuitous rise in the water table... you get the drift.

But the real culprit has a tenuous connection with the Member of Parliament who gets elected to represent the Gurugram constituency in the Lok Sabha. Instead it's an institutional failure that is causing the ructions. Elections to the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram, a body that has never been renowned for efficiency, have been delayed for the past year and a half. With no one really in charge, energetic RWAs have resorted to organising noisy dharnas at MCG House to galvanise its bureaucrats into addressing their problems. These protests, complete with slogan shouting and placard waving, are certainly cathartic; they even yield well-meaning responses but these are too incremental to make an appreciable difference.