Last month, an ambulance took 30 minutes to reach a society that was just 4-kilometres away from Marengo Asia Hospital on Golf Extension Road, twice the recommended response time. This was not a one-time incident.
Response vehicles take nearly double the time it should take to cover a certain distance, wasting crucial time in medical emergencies, according to doctors and ambulance drivers in Gurugram.
The recommended ambulance response time in medical emergencies is 10 minutes in busy urban areas, under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Operational Guidelines on National Ambulance Services, 2026. The broader target is to reach the nearest medical centre within 20 minutes. For highways such as NH-48, the National Highways Authority of India requires ambulances to reach accident sites within 10 minutes of ticket acceptance for incidents within a 10km radius. NHAI has also prescribed a ₹ 10,000 penalty per missed benchmark, with an additional ₹ 5,000 for each minute of delay in specific dispatch-related cases. In August 2025, residents told HT that a badly damaged road between Daultabad flyover and Dwarka Expressway was delaying ambulances and other emergency vehicles. “Our target is to revamp 396 kilometers of road.
Because of waterlogging, an ambulance driver, who works at a government hospital, alleged that sometimes ambulance staff is forced to either carry or ask family members to bring the patients some distance away to the vehicle. Due to the monsoon, all the bitumen projects are on a halt. The family of course holds us (drivers) responsible. “It must be very difficult for them, but our vehicles break down in monsoon waters. We will resume the rest of the repairs as the monsoon season ends. Rest, we are carrying out repair works as per the complaints of residents on Mhari Sadar application.”
An ambulance driver who works for Civil Hospital, Gurugram, asking not to be named, said, “There are so many potholes in the way, especially in Old Gurugram, that cause vehicles to keep shaking, troubling the patient. When asked for comment, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) said it is actively working towards improving the road conditions. An MCG official told HT that 177km of the road has been repaired in eight months.
