Noida is a new planned city built on open acquired land unlike our traditional towns and cities which have developed in hundreds of years. The plan of Noida city is like a chess board where the entire city is divided into more than hundred sectors and roads running between them. Various uses have been allocated to these sectors, like residential, commercial, industrial etc. However, residential sectors are the maximum, much more than the others. Our sector 26 is one such residential sector. It is one of the earliest ones of Noida.
Our sector’s shape is a perfect rectangle and it measures about 700 meters by 600 meters, which is about 104 acres. For comparison, it is just four times of the land on which the DPS school is. A network of roads divides the sector into five blocks. Whereas four blocks, A, B, C, & D are purely residential, the fifth one E is a mix use block and is centrally located with the other four surround it. Block E contains schools, hospitals, club, community centre and temples. There is a group housing plot within it too. The four blocks have residential plots of various sizes, totalling to over 900. Each of these residential blocks has a small commercial area of few shops and three parks each, excepting block D which has got one.
A total of over 7000 people live in our sector. Most of them live in houses built on plots and some live in flats in the society apartments located in block E. This is the only gated housing in our sector but it is not like the other large Gated Communities which have come up in the newer sectors of Noida where many more community facilities are provided within the gated area.
Although our sector, like many other sectors of Noida A is planned with relatively newer ideas of town planning, but it is already showing several ‘flaws’ for today’s living. The good intention behind providing community facilities in the centre of the sector in block E was intended to provide easy accessibility for all residents living around it. But it has failed. Mainly because the facilities meant for the sector has become for the entire Noida and beyond. The small plots meant for community health centres have become regional hospitals. The plot for a small school houses a large high school. The Community Centre plot has doubled up as a Club too. And there are two temples in this central location. All these facilities naturally bring in huge number of people from outside the sector for which the sector roads are not planned for. This not only brings traffic and parking problems but also brings disturbances for the residents of the sector. Incidentally to avoid these kind of problems the new planning methods of today keep all community ÿþfacilities at the periphery of the sector with access directly from outside roads. The other problem is of security. Which resulted in the need of ‘gates’ to control access. But that is practically difficult to manage with all the city level facilities located in the middle of the sector.
But still, our sector 26 is one of the best in Noida. It does not have a “village” within it. It does not have smelly “nalas” passing through it. Our roads are wider than the ones in other sectors built around the same time and the roads are beautiful with the trees lining them. Our sector has many parks for our children to play and residents to walk and relax. Today one notices that the plots which are getting redeveloped in our sector are mostly for the owners to live, all have ground floor on stilts for parking and aesthetically quite modern and appealing.
So, in spite of all the problems we face, I still feel our sector is much better than many others and we should be proud of our Sector 26.
