How best-laid plans have gone awry due to encroachments and poor sanitation

Rohini in northwest Delhi has well-planned roads without potholes, sewerage has reached even the villages and there are shopping centres and parks in almost every sector of the locality.

- [e-mail]

New Delhi: Everything to be happy about. But people there still talk of struggles four decades after Rohini was developed as one of Delhi’s first sub-cities.

Pavements occupied by hawkers, illegal parking on the roads and street dogs roaming around frustrate the voters in this high-profile ward, which has BJP’s Vijendra Gupta as representative in the state assembly and Hans Raj Hans in Parliament. Besides these obvious civic impediments, the residents also demand better maintenance of infrastructure, new facilities like open gyms and children parks and enhanced safety for women and children.

“It is difficult for pedestrians because all the pavements have been encroached upon by hawkers and car parkers,” said Malti Sharma, a homemaker, in Sector 13. “We are forced to walk on the main road, where several people have fallen victim to snatchers. Walking on pavements or footpaths would have prevented this.”