Boom to bust: Gurugram’s illegal PG business faces crackdown

It was a quiet Saturday morning on June 20. Sanghamitra Pati was at her home in Bhubaneswar when her phone rang.“Do ghante mein room khali kar do, building seal ho rahi hai (Vacate the room in two hours. The building is being sealed),” the caretaker of her rented accommodation in Gurugram’s DLF Phase 3 told her. Minutes later, her landlord repeated the message.The 26-year-old marketing manager initially dismissed it as a prank. She called back to check. The answer was the same. Officials were on their way to seal the building in S Block. She had two hours to empty her one-bedroom apartment.Hundreds of kilometres away, with keys to the flat in her bag, there was little she could do. She called a friend in Gurugram and asked him to break into the apartment and salvage whatever he could. It was the beginning of a scramble that, in the weeks that followed, upended the lives of hundreds of tenants caught in Gurugram’s crackdown on unauthorised paying guest (PG) accommodations and illegally converted rental units.“I have completely boycotted all DLF Phases,” Pati says after moving into a 1BHK in a group housing society off Golf Course Extension Road.“This new place is not a builder floor,” she says, referring to a multi-storey residential building constructed by a private developer with each floor sold separately. “I even asked colleagues in real estate to help me find something with the necessary approvals — something less likely to be targeted for sealing or demolition.” The lesson, she says, came the hard way.High Court-mandated driveThe sealing drive in DLF City Phases 1 to 5 stems from a long-running legal dispute over alleged building by-law violations, unauthorised constructions and commercial use of residential properties, particularly Economically Weaker Section (EWS) plots. The matter originated in petitions filed by the DLF City Residents Welfare Association and other local groups in 2021 seeking enforcement of planning norms.The Punjab and Haryana High Court on February 13, 2025 had directed the District Town Planner (Enforcement), Gurugram, to act against violations in residential colonies. However, the Supreme Court stayed the order on April 4 that year. The matter returned to the High Court on November 26 and it restrained the DTP (Enforcement) from taking action. On May 29 this year, the court limited the protection to only those who had filed civil miscellaneous applications, allowing enforcement action to proceed against other properties.More than 5,000 properties are facing action over zoning violations, including the illegal operation of PG accommodations, commercial use of residential plots, and encroachments on the “right of way” — land reserved for public movement and infrastructure. But for hundreds of working professionals such as Pati, it has meant sudden displacement, financial stress, and the fear that a home can be taken away anytime.A 25-year-old woman from Kolkata, on condition of anonymity, says the sealing drive in DLF Phase 3’s S Block came without warning on June 18, leaving her with just 10 minutes to react. She was at work when a neighbour called.The damage became apparent later. Half her belongings remained locked inside after the building was sealed. A week later, after tenants approached the District Town Planner’s office, they were given a two-hour window to retrieve what was left.“By then, everything was spoilt,” the woman says. She spent the next two weeks in a hotel before finding a new 1BHK in the first week of July.“Since the drive, demand for 1BHKs and 1RKs has shot up. Rents have skyrocketed. It’s not just me — hundreds of professionals and families have been displaced. Choices are limited because so many buildings have already been sealed, and more are on the radar,” she says.In hindsight, Pati considers herself “fortunate” to have been living alone. Others in her building were not as lucky.“Families with toddlers and elderly parents were running around. One of my friends, who was sta