A mini Singapore.....NOT YET! and may never be!. Review on Gurgaon

I am Sonali Prabhu and this is my first review on MouthShut. I found "Gurgaon" listed as one of the products on MouthShut (Surprised though!) and went on to read the 4 reviews posted here before mine. I saw a common notion about what writers call "The mini Singapore". Fortunately or unfortunately, I have moved from Gurgaon to Singapore last month and stand at a position where I can really compare the mini Singapore to the actual Singapore. So here's what I see.....

People: Guragon is slowly growing into a self contained metropolis, with people from all parts of India settling there , primarily for their living. Its an almost a cosmopolitan city now. The income strata of people living here has a huge variation. We have the richest of the richest owning mansions here while the poorest of the poor live at traffic signals and in the streets. The real Singapoer in comparision does not have that variety in terms of people as well as income groups. Although Singapore has residents from all parts of the worls, South East Asians followed by sobcontinent expatriates comprise more than 3/4th of the popuplation.

Infrastructure: Gurgaon can boast of tall sky scrapers coming up like mushrooms in marshlands, but there is very little of supporting infrastructure around. The Haryana government has been taking some initiatives, but they have all fallen short of the real need. The roads are generally ill maintained, there is hardly any provision for drainage and the sewers clogg up on every houyt of rainfall. Due to the construction of flyovers on NH-8 ( Delhi - Mumbia highway) there have been traffic disruptions for over 7 years now. I heard that things are better now after some of the portions have been made live. In contrast, Singapore has seen this 25 years back and is connected by seamless network of roads. I stay 17 kms away from my place of working, and take less than 15 mins to arrive from home.

Real Estate: To the best of my understanding Gurgaon is costlier than Singapore I n terms of property. Whether be it own property or rented home / office space, all are very expensive in Gurgaon. Singapore is expensive, but getting a 2 bedroom accomodation here is not that big an issue in terms of availability or cost.

Malls: Yes this is one area where Gurgaon matches up to or even beats few of the big shopping complexes here. Although parking is a problem throughout Gurgaon malls, the overall experience is somewhat similar. Multiplexes here play India cinema too, but hollywood movies are a rage out here.

Cleanliness: Both cities are poles apart in this area. Chewing gum is banned in Singapore, while Gurgaon still reeks of paan and guthka at all nooks and corners. The Malls are kept clean, and hats off those guys who maintain the toilets of thses malls in Gurgaon. In Singapore, dog lovers need a license to keep a pet, and they need to carry a paperbag to ensure that their dog does not s h I t on public places, once it feel the pressure in its bowels. In Gurgaon , forgive me for saying so, but even humans do not feel obliged to do so at places.

Public Transportation: Gurgaon is virtually a zero on this front while Singapore is one of the best in the world on this. Gurgaon has plenty of land, but all is being aquired to build buildings with virtually no thought about reducing the number of private vehicles jamming the tattered roads.

Places of public interest: In a more technicised city like Singapore we still have so many places of public interest like museums, water parks, sports grounds, Zoo, sea beaches etc. Singapore was not naturally rich in anything other than sea beaches, the rest have been carefully planned and set up by the people here. Gurgaon has better natural resources like the Sultanpur Bird sanctuary, Manesar etc, but apathetic attitude by authorities a low public interest have kept all this from being developed like it was done in Singapore.

Quality of living: This is the most debatable point of them all. We must understand that quality of living is a holistic view of the life-style one can live in, and is not just limited to our cosy homes, swanky malls and tidy airconditioned offices. Although the mall culture has flodded Gurgaon with the latest coffee to the latest cell phone in the world, regural power cuts, bad roads, dusty atmosphere, traffic jams to name a few have not really contributed to improving quality of life.

I can actually go on and on but the limit of characters here would not le me do so. I want to re-state that I have lived in Gurgaon for 7 years and am truly missing my hometown while staying here in Singapore, but I can assure you that its not a mini Singapore and will never be one. Its Gurgaon, and shall remain Gurgaon.

Thank you for reading.