Gurgaon: Nearly two-thirds of the city households are not connected to legal sewer lines.Municipal figures reveal a stark contradiction beneath the surface. Out of 5.5 lakh households of the city, only 1.8 lakh had authorised sewer connections even as the glass towers, corporate campuses and luxury housing clusters of Gurgaon project the image of a global city.With 3.7 lakh homes — a whopping 66.6% — outside the formal sanitation system, most residents either depend on septic tanks or informal disposal channels rather than the city’s official network.If Gurgaon’s numbers are troubling, those of neighbouring Faridabad are even more severe. In Faridabad, out of 6 lakh households, just 1.2 lakh are linked to the official sewer network. That means 4.8 lakh homes (79.1%) lack legal sewer connections, leaving only about one in five households within the formal system.Besides Gurgaon and Faridabad, several other cities of Haryana also show alarming gaps. Sonipat has 52,548 households without legal sewer connections, Panipat has a gap of 53,044, followed by Karnal, which has a gap of 41,424 households without legal sewer connections.A senior MCG official told TOI, “There is a significant gap in legal sewer connections across the city, largely due to what was a complicated application process. We streamlined the system and will launch a portal this week to simplify obtaining authorised sewer connections in the MCG area. Residents will now need only a property ID and a govt-issued ID to apply.”“We are also considering incentives for plumbers who report illegal connections, which will help us identify violations, take enforcement action, and regularise the system,” he added.According to official records, Gurgaon requires about 1,850km of sewerage network and currently has roughly 1,800km in place, leaving a shortfall of around 50km. The municipal corporation is preparing an estimate to bridge this gap. In Faridabad, the requirement stands at 2,289 km, but only 1,875 km is available, resulting in a deficit of 414 km. The corporation set a deadline of Dec 2027 to complete the remaining network. “Faridabad is an industrial town and here several residents did not take legal sewer connections. Residents have to pay a certain fee to get their sewerage connections legalised, so they are hesitant. We gave specific directions to our engineers to legalise these sewer connections; otherwise, we have a sewerage network across the city,” said a senior MCF official requesting anonymity.Residents say that while illegal sewer connections are a big problem, the infrastructure crisis on the ground is also years in the making.“Density multiplied; towers rose; colonies, authorised and unauthorised, spread, but sewage capacity, like other infrastructure, barely improved,” Kundan Lal Sharma, former cabinet secretariat officer and a resident of Gurgaon, told TOI. “Gurgaon expanded exponentially while authorities kept tinkering with plumbing built for a much smaller town. What began as a gap is now a structural crisis, with drains, treatment plants and aquifers under strain,” said Kundan Lal.
