Traffic, Environment and Urban Planning Chaos in Sector 50, Noida
Dear Sir,
We would like to request your kind attention of the situation created in our sector, due to the new school, “GD Goenka World School”, opposite to the houses B-7 to B-13.
We all are extremely perturbed and mentally harassed and looks like it’s going to be a future life-threatening situation for us. A few representatives from our sector have already personally met the CEO, SSP traffic informing them of the situation.
Two visits have been done by S.P. Traffic, Anil Jha, Noida and unofficially he said that “aap logon ko jhelna padega.”
However, would like to put the following points in front of you, for the purpose of records and kind perusal. Kindly note, the multiple representations are being made because we all are getting impacted, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. We as residents feel, that as usual, we will be taken for granted:
- It’s a 4th Full-Size School on Sector 50: Till about a month ago, when the school placed an advertisement in the leading newspaper, we were not aware that, one more, “Full-Size School”, is being planned in our sector. We all were under the impression, that everyone will be sensible enough to not start a full-size school in this already overcrowded area. Point to be noted is that, Sector 50 already has three full-size schools, viz Kothari International, Ramagya, Nilgiri and multiple play schools. So, we wonder, what are the big planners and think-tank of Noida, doing, when they can’t get this simple logic straight. Because of their mistakes, why residents need to suffer, feel congested and are denied easy entry to their homes. We can’t enter our homes. In fact the other day I went out and met with a minor accident.
- Traffic Chaos on 18m Road: On this small 18m road, on which GD Goenka School is coming up, it’s already, a traffic nightmare. This is primarily due to the “Over-successful B-Block Market” and commercial activities being done by another playschool in this area. Additionally, we have 18 school buses and the residents of four societies plus the church and the mosque, who use this road as their primary road. If we add the traffic of the new school, in additional to Ramagya’s school traffic, we are sure, we are looking at hour-long jams and dead-lock situations soon. Already this area looks like accident prone to me! We wonder if these things will still be considered and we would not be taken for granted…it’s a traffic nightmare just outside my house. Since the school have started, their guards keep blowing the whistles to control the traffic which is not possible on such a road.
- They have been extracting from the borewells, have huge Diesel Gen-sets and few trees must have been already cut and more trees are about to be cut. The said school is already planning to cut five-six trees in front of their boundary wall to create parking space. Sir, we didn’t pay a huge price for our plots to live in these gas-chambers and this greedy and selfish, money-minded approach of authority is clearly infringing into our fundamental right to live. The fumes of the generator come directly into my house … making it more difficult to breathe inside my own house. Every day increased horns and noise of the moving traffic have already started giving us headaches.
- Flouting of the Construction Norms: Though, we are not the experts, but from the common sense, one can see that a lot of construction norms, must have been flouted. There was construction happening without any NGT norms, like covering the site to avoid dust and other material falling all around, the construction material being dumped on the road, cement being mixed, right in the middle of the road, no safety equipment used by the workers (like helmets, harness belts etc.). One can see, what kind of role model, such people will be for the students, when they can’t get their act in line. More importantly, why are the relevant authorities sleeping or they will do their job, only when, public complains.
We feel so cluttered because few of our homes just fall just outside these two schools Noddy Play School and GD Goenka and the former one has a lot of flow of traffic. So we are supposed to bear the heavy traffic flow all day long because technically a school runs for eight hours, but we all know how many commercial activities are going on or are we putting a cap on them?
Noddy school A-56/1, runs commercial activities, they have converted their parking into the gym, so many cars are parked outside, runs coaching classes not for the small kids…
Another school is white field daycare.
A-56/2 has covered their stilt parking and have built 2 floors extra … but obviously, the traffic load comes on our road. A-56/3 has started construction.. We are about to go mad I think.
GD Goenka is made of a size which is not the size suggested by its author itself. It’s made on 7093 sq m but Noida gazette says eight hectares!
Also according to the population guideline there should be one senior secondary school per 25,000 heads of people and sector 50 has already 3 sr Sec schools and this is the fourth one and however, I stretch it the total population will not exceed 35,000. In fact sizes of the A-56/2, A-56/3 & A-56/1 doesn’t fall into the category too.
Thusly our security is at stake because now our road will get exposed to a lot of public traffic despite just the residents. One of the residents has already faced a small theft in her house during a function in her house!
We have at least 10 senior citizens staying on these 16 houses, what if there is any medical emergency?
Or because of the poor town planning, they are supposed to die without reaching the hospitals, because there is no scope of ambulances to enter from the market, it’s so chaotic and to top it all the schools in front! Or have you made any special arrangements to airlift us in times of need?
We feel so caged, it’s like if you have entered Sector-50, you can’t get out. You have provided all the facilities, say hospital, the school at every corner of the sector. Sir, how can you make sure that no one needs an emergency easement of flow during the peak hours. How is the free and expeditious movement of residents in the residential area for routine and especially in an emergency situation being compromised? If aforesaid is considered then what is the reasoning for allowing such establishment in residential area treating it as institutional area? Is any obligation assigned to the institution and local administration to address this situation? Or are we the residents/citizens taken for granted!
Stress levels are already on a high. There was not much of honking during the morning and afternoon hours, now because of the poor town planning it has been made sure the people honk, because there is no way for people to walk, and drive or cycle. It’s a situation of 24 hours mess. Every day there shall be fights on the roads, because of the parking their cars outside our gates and dropping their kids! And definitely you can’t measure the stress levels in any amount.
Sir, then what comes is the security of the school kids. Are we waiting for another Ryan like incident to happen? We all know that the eyewitness of the same is being offered money by Ryan. And on this road, we are catering to traffic from all the walks of life! What is when parents come to drop their kids to school; one of us by mistake hurt them? Are we waiting for more incidents to awaken our basic consciousness?
We all residents hereby request you to get consider the above points and come up with a win-win solution. Kindly treat this matter as most urgent.
By Chhavi Methi
