Gurgaon: The Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) is planning a departure from its previous plan of building a four-storey multilevel parking facility in Phase IV of Udyog Vihar. The corporation is now considering a seven-storey building that will also have dedicated floors for commercial use apart from a multilevel parking lot.HSIIDC deputy general manager Arun Garg said, “The concept plan is being modified. We are examining the possibility of earmarking some floors for commercial use along with parking. Since the concept has changed, the approval process will have to begin afresh. The revised proposal is being prepared at the headquarters and the final design and floor-wise utilisation are yet to be decided.”Officials said they have yet to finalise how many floors will be allocated for parking and how much space will be reserved for commercial activities. The revised project will move forward only after fresh approvals.Spread across five phases, Udyog Vihar houses nearly 3,000 industrial and commercial establishments, including IT-BPM companies, garment exporters, textile units, automobile firms and manufacturing industries. More than 1.5 lakh employees, business visitors, transport operators and entrepreneurs commute to the area every day. Despite enormous daily footfall, the industrial estate does not have a single public parking facility developed by the govt. As a result, vehicles are routinely parked along both sides of internal roads across all five phases, narrowing carriageways and creating bottlenecks throughout the day.Industry representatives said the parking shortage has persisted for years despite repeated representations to successive govts. “Every govt and several administrative regimes acknowledged the issue, but the demand for a dedicated parking facility remained unfulfilled,” said an industrialist. “There is no organised parking anywhere in Udyog Vihar. Roads have effectively become parking lots, affecting industrial activity and traffic movement,” he said.Gurgaon Udyog Association president Praveen Yadav said the lack of parking also hurts the industrial area’s image among domestic and overseas investors. “When buyers and investors visit Udyog Vihar, the first impression they get is of congested roads lined with parked vehicles. It reflects poorly on one of the state’s most important industrial hubs,” Yadav said.The parking shortage has had wider operational consequences. Industrial associations said employees often struggle to find parking, affecting punctuality and productivity. Freight movement is delayed because trucks and commercial vehicles have limited space to manoeuvre, disrupting logistics and delivery schedules. Congestion also increases operating costs for businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, while restricting access for emergency services such as fire engines and ambulances.The revised project is not the first attempt to address the issue. HSIIDC earlier proposed a dedicated multilevel parking facility to create organised parking capacity in the industrial estate. However, that plan did not materialise. In 2018, HSIIDC sold 12 acres of land, including 4 acres of land reserved for multilevel parking in Udyog Vihar Phase 5, to a leading developer for Rs 1,496 crore, leaving Udyog Vihar without the much-needed parking infrastructure.Officials, however, believe the mixed-use model could make the project economically sustainable while finally delivering organised parking facilities. Whether the revised proposal succeeds will depend on fresh approvals and the final design, both of which are still under preparation.
