Ghaziabad: A week ago, Vipul Goyal of Shipra Krishna Vista in Indirapuram fell ill. His son lives abroad and he did not have medicines at home. Being a senior citizen and not so tech-savvy, he was left with no other option but to call his 75-year-old neighbour, PL Arora, and request him to get the pills.It was not that Goyal was unable to step out of his home, but his old age, coupled with the dug-up roads in the area, has made it difficult to walk across the stretch safely.The footpaths in Indian cities aren’t pedestrian-friendly. But parts of Ghaziabad do not even have footpaths. Residents of Indirapuram, Kaushambi and Vaishali are forced to walk on the road but with CM-GRID projects and other repair works, they say navigating their neighbourhoods has become hazardous as dug-up roads with protruding iron rods pose risks. The situation worsens during rain, when waterlogging around the excavations makes slipping into open trenches a serious concern, residents said.“We are aged. We do not stay with our children as they have all moved out for work. With pits dug up all around us, it feels like we have been cooped up in our apartment complex,” Goyal’s neighbour Arora said. “The day GMC decided to dig these pits one after another, our dependency on each other increased. Now, whenever we learn that someone is stepping out, we send them a list of our daily needs.”A resident of Ahimsa Khand, Seema Aggarwal, said unlike Delhi or Noida, there is no public transport in Ghaziabad. “We are dependent on e-rickshaws and autos to get us to the nearest metro stations. Since they dug up the road in front of my house, I am scared to use these vehicles to travel the last mile. What if the rickshaw trips and straight up lands me in the hospital, who will take care of my family?” she complained.Residents of Kaushambi, where the entire stretch leading to the metro station has been dug up with missing barricades, have complained about how the dug-up roads have disrupted their daily routines, particularly their morning walks. Many elderly residents said the uneven stretches and loose debris have forced them to remain indoors.Forty-four year-old Priyanka Devi said she has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and doctors have advised her to walk every day. “I can’t afford a treadmill and there are hardly any parks near my house. Every morning, as the main roads are empty, I would take these roads but now, there is hardly any lane where I can walk,” she said, pointing towards the excavated road.Currently, road stretches totalling 20 km are under repair under the CM-GRID scheme. Work has been taken up with a Rs 300 crore estimated budget, of which Rs 223 crore has already been sanctioned. Despite this, work on the ground crawls along.Priyanka is scared for her health. “If this is how it is in the summer, I am scared of the monsoon already. I have heard that it will be earlier this year and I don’t see the works progressing,” she said.
