Airforce Naval Housing Board (Jalvayu Vihar)

Following a request made by an avid reader of this blog, we visited Jalvayu Vihar in Action Area 1, New Town.

This project is under the purview of Air Force  and Naval Housing Board.

The allottees to this project have to be service men in either the Army or Navy. Both serving and retired personnel  were eligible to buy an apartment in this project @ subsidized rates.

The project seems to be progressing at a decent pace. They have had and are still having their share of problems owing to infrastructural issues.


 These towers sit right next to Greenfield Heights project (one of the first and only project to become inhabitable)

We met and interviewed Commander Nadeem the project director at the project. In many ways he is a frustrated man. Frustrated of incessant delays and the bureaucracy he has had to face dealing with the various government agencies responsible for development in New Town.





At this point his primary concern is that of powering up these apartment homes. He has been knocking the doors of WBSEDCL - West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited and several other allied agencies just to ensure electric supply can be provided at the project. He has been running around from pillar to post, just to have the government officials make empty promises. We all now by know government "babus" talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the talk, there aren't many takers !


We were told that the builders also have to be involved in the process of procuring transformers and related equipment, even though installation and maintenance of these transformers and related power equipment is essentially WBSEDCL's job.  Now then, apparently the officials at WBSEDCL have come to a decision about the specifications of necessary equipment and will be initiating the process to purchase it. Commander Nadeem  is hopeful that the project can be completed by the year end and the handover process can then be initiated, which may be spread over a period of 3 months. However he does add that this deadline hinges on the fact that promises that have been made to him by the government bodies are met promptly.

It is no longer news that several projects, almost all of them are delayed owing to infrastructural issues. Some of these brought upon themselves by inefficient government bodies with ineffective employees with little accountability or even lesser incentive to deliver on time. As if this were not enough the local folks are acting as politically charged ions !  
            
However there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel, as the project director is hopeful of meeting this deadline of year end 2010. He substantiated his estimates with real data - water supply has been arranged for, sewerage lines have been laid, internal finishing work has started. He added that they were doing everything in their capacity and are leaving no stone unturned to deliver the goods !  Let us hope so too.

Now then, here is the walk-through video !