Haryana on Tuesday changed the leadership of two key civic bodies in Gurugram, transferring the chief executive officer of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) commissioner in a wider administrative reshuffle involving 14 IAS and HCS officers.
The changes come months after severe monsoon waterlogging brought Gurugram to a standstill, leaving school buses carrying children stranded on flooded roads, and amid deteriorating air quality across Delhi-NCR. The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has also invoked Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) across the region.
According to a government order dated November 10, Phool Chand Meena, a 2004-batch IAS officer who was heading the GMDA and Faridabad Metropolitan Development Authority (FMDA), has been moved to the posts of Commissioner and Secretary in the state’s Human Resources and General Administration departments.
Dusmanta Kumar Behera, a 2007-batch IAS officer who was holding these two departmental positions, will replace Meena as CEO of both the GMDA and FMDA.
At the MCG, Commissioner Pradeep Dahiya has been transferred as Managing Director of the Haryana State Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills and Director of the State Audit Department. Pankaj, a 2020-batch IAS officer who was serving as Municipal Commissioner of Panipat, took over as the new MCG Commissioner and District Municipal Commissioner of .
Mohd Imran Raza has been appointed Additional CEO of the GMDA, while Ankita Choudhary has been moved from the MCG to take charge as Municipal Commissioner of Panipat. The reshuffle also includes changes in other IAS and HCS postings.
The transfers come after city’s alleged failure to cope with heavy monsoon rainfall in August. On August 24, intense showers inundated several arterial roads, underpasses and residential areas, disrupting traffic and leaving children travelling home from school stuck in buses for hours.
Gurugram recorded around 75 mm of rainfall between 8 am and 5 pm that day, according to district administration data. Subhash Chowk was among the worst-affected locations, with school buses stranded in waterlogging and traffic congestion.
On August 25, hundreds of schoolchildren had remained inside buses for hours. Parents struggled to reach them as flooded roads and traffic snarls blocked access to several areas. The district administration subsequently invoked the Disaster Management Act and issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) to regulate school transport during heavy rainfall.
14 school buses had remained stranded for up to six hours during the August . Children were inside the buses as water accumulated around the vehicles.
The flooding also triggered questions over drainage infrastructure and accountability.
On September 8, Union Minister of State and Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh wrote to Chief Minister seeking a vigilance inquiry into the waterlogging. He raised concerns about encroachments on natural drains and the lack of action despite notices being issued to builders, according to ThePrint.
A senior Haryana government officer told ThePrint that the transfers were part of a routine process and should not be read as having any specific significance.
The administrative changes also come as air pollution remains a major concern across Delhi-NCR. On November 12, Delhi recorded an average AQI of 321 at 7 am, placing it in the ‘very poor’ category, according to CPCB data. Gurugram also reported elevated pollution levels, with NISE Gwal Pahari recording an AQI of 359 at around 5 am, according to readings.
The CAQM invoked Stage III of GRAP across Delhi-NCR on November 6 after Delhi’s daily average AQI reached 382. The commission said forecasts from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology indicated that air quality was likely to deteriorate into the ‘severe’ category.
Stage III measures include restrictions on non-essential construction and demolition activities, alongside measures under the earlier stages. The CAQM has also called for dust-control measures and urged citizens to follow its advisory.
