The Hindu : New Delhi News : Readers' Mail

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Monday, Aug 09, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Readers' Mail

No, Vice-Chancellor

Sir, -- Prabha Dixit's letter, "No, Vice-Chancellor" (Readers' Mail, July 26) is timely, and calls a spade a spade. It throws light on the modus operandi and modus vivendi of the Delhi University Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Deepak Nayyar. But at least the Miranda House teachers and students had the opportunity of having a darshan of what Ms. Dixit likens to a "Mughal kotwal". We, the teachers of Delhi University's School of Correspondence Courses and Continuing Education, would like to draw the attention of all concerned to the fact that the Vice-Chancellor, who is going to complete his tenure in April 2005, is yet to visit our School even once.

All other Vice-Chancellors in the past have been visiting the School -- which comprises 65 per cent students of the whole university -- trying to understand and solve various and varied problems of the teachers, students and karmacharis. On the other hand, Prof. Nayyar has been changing the School's structure by throwing all norms to the winds.

Without any consultation with the teachers, students and karmacharis, Prof. Nayyar has of late gone on restructuring the School in a manner that will benefit only his chosen favourites to the detriment of the teaching and student communities as also the karmacharis.

In the process, he has undone all the positive measures taken by his predecessor, Prof. V.R. Mehta, based on the Chandrasekhar Rao Committee Report approved by the Academic Council, the Executive Council and the Visitor of the University -- that is, the President of India. It is high time the authorities concerned stopped Prof. Nayyar from damaging the School of Correspondence Courses & Continuing Education in every possible manner.

Teachers of the School have been struggling to see that the Chandrasekhar Rao Committee Report is implemented forthwith, whereby the School would have been transformed into the Department of Distance Education, to the advantage of students, teachers and karmacharis.

What Prof. Nayyar has done instead is superimposing a structure of four parts without any coordination among them. Clearly, the set-up that Prof. Nayyar is creating is preponderantly bureaucratic, which will hinder rather than help academic advancement.

Teachers of the School of Correspondence

Courses & Continuing Education,

University of Delhi,

Delhi - 110 007.

Two cheers

Sir, -- According to your report, "Canteen liquor to cost more" ( The Hindu , July 6), the Delhi Cabinet has decided to raise the excise duty on all brands of liquor available in the Defence Services Canteen on the plea that the rate differential between the liquor sold in the Central Stores Department (CSD) and that in the open market is very high and as a result the CSD liquor often finds its way into the open market, affecting the revenues of the Government.

I request the Delhi Government to investigate how exactly the CSD liquor finds its way into the open market. At the same time, the local Army authorities should hold a parallel inquiry into the matter. After the Delhi Government has completed its investigation, it should share its findings with the Army authorities -- and so should the Army authorities when their inquiry into the matter is complete.

The objective of the whole exercise should be to identify the real villains behind this scandal and ascertain especially the role of the civilian staff employed in the CSD canteens and locate their nexus if any with the civilian liquor sale outlets. The matter cannot be dismissed casually, for the image of the Services is at stake. I would also humbly request the civilian friends and relatives of ex-Servicemen not to approach them with requests for liquor from the CSD canteens for marriage functions or other parties. Any honest ex-Serviceman like me will not oblige them and they will feel embarrassed to receive a "No".

Lt.-Col (Retd) Onkar Chopra,

Flat-114A, Block-C2B,

Janak Puri,

New Delhi-110 058.

Water, please

Sir, -- Many parts of Delhi have been facing an acute shortage of water due to the constantly falling water level of the Yamuna. But the scarcity of water cannot always be attributed to the steadily dropping level of the river. It can be an artificial crisis created by civic officials.

Double-storey flats on Mandir Marg are a case in point. This colony had been reeling under a water crisis for about an year, with the supply curtailed drastically by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) authorities from five hours a day (6.00 to 8.30 a.m./p.m.) to barely two hours (7.00 to 8.00 a.m./p.m.).

The one-hour supply in the morning as well as evening was not sufficient even for domestic chores. Repeated verbal requests to the NDMC authorities to step up the supply proved to be an exercise in futility. "The supply from the Jhandewalan reservoir is not adequate" was the sole refrain of the NDMC officials concerned.

However, a team of officers visited the water tank in the colony on July 15 this year following a report published in a section of the Press about the problem. And as the officers got the two main valves adjusted, the five-hour supply was restored!

Obviously, somebody had intentionally disturbed the valve adjustments. For normal supply would not have become available, despite the adjustment of the valves, in case there was a short supply from the Jhandewalan reservoir. It is pertinent to add here that the key to the valves remains in the personal custody of the Junior Engineer (Main Line).

Moreover, why are major marketplaces in the neighbourhood like Connaught Place, Bhagat Singh Market and Bangla Sweets shopping centre at the Baird Road intersection not affected if there is a fall in the supply of water from the Jhandewalan reservoir?

So far so bad. But there is a further twist in the tale. Surprisingly, the NDMC has now once again cut down, this time officially, the supply of water to our colony to two hours a day. Oral instructions have been issued to the staff concerned to supply water only from 6-30 to 7-30 a.m./p.m daily from July 19, 2004, even if sufficient quantity of water is available from the Jhandewalan reservoir!

Will the NDMC Chairman look into the matter urgently and restore normal supply of water to this colony of 750 flats at once, please?

S.C. Gupta,

24/293, Mandir Marg,

New Delhi.

Parking pangs

Sir, -- "Parking Blues" by Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar in "Inside Delhi" ( The Hindu , July 13) talks of the need for more parking space at the brand new Millennium Indraprastha Park, with visitors' cars spilling over to Ring Road. You ask DDA's planners to once again sit down on the drawing board and redesign the parking so that a larger number of vehicles can be accommodated, thus swelling DDA's revenues and sparing visitors the present parking nightmare.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi, too, is trying to "rationalise" parking fees in the Capital from August and to computerise these operations from October. We also read of attempts to introduce multi-level parking and differential parking fees to discourage people going too far from home for shopping, even as talk of pedestrianising Connaught Place on one weekday appears in the media. A variety of measures are certainly needed to contain the deluge of vehicles in the National Capital Region before we reach the 2-km-an hour crawl predicted for this metropolis of 14 million by the late Chief Executive Councillor of Delhi, Jag Parvesh Chandra.

Vinod Chowdhury,

Head of the Department of Economics,

St. Stephen's College,

Delhi - 110 007.

Why subways?

Sir, -- The Delhi Chief Minister certainly deserves praise for her candour in admitting that pedestrian subways do not work in Delhi. However, her analysis of the reasons is not quite as exemplary.

The point of subways, surely, is not whether they are "popular", but whether they are a useful tool in managing the city's traffic, and consequently in bringing down the accident rate. A population used to crossing streets without any thought for safety is not going to convert to subways without some convincing.

Surely the police have a role to play in all this. Unless there is a drive to eliminate jay-walking, Sheila Dikshit's plan to switch to overbridges is equally doomed--and more of an eyesore, to boot.

Mohit Satyanand,

S 349, Panchshila Park,

New Delhi - 110 017.

A first

Sir, -- Among all the municipal corporations of metropolitan cities across the country, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is the first to introduce computer education in its primary schools. The other municipal corporations should follow suit.

L.C. Kaul,

D-40, Pamposh Enclave,

New Delhi - 110 048.

(Letters for this column may be sent by e-mail to

wsins@thehindu.co.in.

They must carry the full postal address of the writer and should be marked "Readers' Mail".)

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