The Hindu : New Delhi News : Readers' Mail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 04, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Readers' Mail

Neglected in

East Delhi

Sir, -- The residents of Vasundhara Enclave feel neglected as far as the development of the locality is concerned. Conveyance is our worst nightmare as there isn't a single DTC bus running through this colony of well over 50 apartments. Officegoers are dependent on erratic chartered buses which run on limited routes and don't ply on Saturday which is a working day for many of us.

Others are at the mercy of cyclerickshaws to reach the nearest bus stand in Trilok Puri, Mayur Vihar or Sector 1, Noida. The buses there are already overcrowded by the time we board them. The rickshaw-pullers charge us heavily as we don't have any other option. Even autorickshaws refuse to come to this locality at night fearing for their safety.

Students going to North Campus of Delhi University have to change a couple of buses on the way to reach their colleges, as there is no U-Special. We strongly feel that the Delhi Government is partial towards South Delhi as is evident from the ease of travel there. Any new type of shelter for bus stands is installed in South Delhi while most of the bus stops in East Delhi are without any shelter whatsoever.

We do hope that this stepmotherly treatment is now stopped and we are given our fair share in the development of Delhi.

V. Sujalini,

B-1/5 Triveni Apartments,

B-3 Vasundhara Enclave,

Delhi-110 096.

A nightmare without an end

Sir, -- Simply unimaginable is the ordeal suffered by motorists day in and day out at the junction near Central School on J.B. Tito Marg in New Delhi due to delay in construction of a flyover and a subway. Hundreds of vehicles wait endlessly from Defence Colony (Lala Lajpat Rai Marg) to the Central School-Greater Kailash traffic junction due to ongoing construction of the Rs.25-crore flyover and subway on J.B. Tito Marg. This road is the only link connecting various posh residential and commercial hubs of South Delhi with other parts of the city. Construction work on the flyover and the subway was taken up in July 2003 by the contractor, Simplex Concrete Piles (India) Limited, under the supervising agencies of DDA and PWD. It is proceeding at a snail's pace for the past 15 months since the scheduled date of completion expired on April 16, 2004. The ordeal suffered by the motorists plying over this road everyday is a non-stop nightmare, but none of the Government agencies involved in the project seems bothered.

During an interview with the media not long ago, Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit promised to make Delhi a world class city within the next five years. She had convened a meeting some time back with all the agencies concerned including the contractors executing the various flyover projects in Delhi. In that meeting, she expressed her displeasure over the delay in all the flyover projects. This was followed by a stern warning by Urban Development Minister A.K. Walia to a contractor, Unitech Construction Limited, for delaying two flyover projects. Mr. Walia even threatened to levy liquidity damages of Rs.20,000 per day for delay beyond the scheduled date of completion. Surprisingly, no warning was given to Simplex Concrete Piles (India) executing the J.B. Tito Marg flyover. It is high time an ultimatum was issued to the contractor.

Meanwhile, to mitigate the suffering of the road-users, the Delhi Traffic Police can temporarily make arrangements to divert traffic from Defence Colony towards Ring Road as this will ease the burden on the Mool Chand flyover.

Tapan Bhattacharya,

G-1377, Chittaranjan Park,

New Delhi-110 019.

Vasant Vihar calling

Sir, -- As per the DTC and the State Transport Authority, Vasant Vihar is supposed to be served by six bus routes (56, 336, 602, 623, 640 and 641). Unfortunately over the past couple of years, but for two routes (56 and 623) the rest have gone into oblivion. Perhaps in the eyes of the authorities those who live in and around Vasant Vihar own a car or two each and as such public transport is not a necessity for them. In fact, there are thousands of Vasant Viharians and other officegoers who rely solely on city buses. For proof, come to the DDA flats in "D" Block, the colonies of Air-India, Indian Airlines, RBI and the huge residential complex of Central Government employees' quarters. During daytime, an equal number of people from all over Delhi attend the hundreds of offices located in Vasant Lok and commercial centres in "C" and "D" blocks as well as three schools.

Despite the curtailment of the assigned bus routes, commuters somehow have been managing with the existing two bus routes. However, since the first week of September, all the buses have been barred from proceeding beyond the Poorvi Marg-Munirka Marg junction and diverted to take a left turn and terminate near Vasant Lok. In other words, Poorvi Marg has been made "one-way" although it is a 100-foot-broad road. Prompted probably by the Vasant Vihar Welfare Association, the traffic police have come up with this illogical arrangement.

Thus commuters who could earlier alight at the Modern School bus stop (near the Telephone Exchange) to go to "D" Block and various other colonies are forced to get off near Auxilium Convent for a long walk. The women, children and the aged are put to great hardship since the elites' fleets of cars and kiosks of so-called security guards occupy the pavements.

After dusk, this new traffic arrangement has become a nightmare for girls, most of them students of evening colleges and vocational courses.

It is absurd that the Vasant Vihar Welfare Association and certain residents have branded buses as a nuisance. And for their part, the traffic police have overlooked the enormous problems faced by the bus passengers. In fact, within the colony, traffic jams are caused by the cars that converge from all parts of the Capital and Gurgaon at Modern School while at Vasant Lok (Priya), the culprits are the mafia of parking attendants, cars with chauffeurs at the wheel and autorickshaws waiting for fares. Wonder whether the Vasant Vihar Welfare Association and the traffic police have ever cared to visit Mumbai and see how traffic is regulated on roads that are narrower than the ones in Delhi. For instance, Bandra is an elite neighbourhood with limited road space yet BEST serves the Bandraites with convenient routes.

In case the Vasant Vihar Welfare Association, certain rich house-owners and the traffic police are really concerned, let them ensure that the pavements are better maintained and free from rows of parked cars or guards' cabins and not put the commoners to avoidable hardship. We trust that the traffic police now would restore movement of buses on Poorvi Marg in both directions at once.

Suresh Panje

(69, Poorvi Marg),

T.J. Abraham

(25, Poorvi Apartments),

and

Ruchi Gupta

(B-18, DDA Flats "D" Block), Vasant Vihar,

New Delhi-110 057.

Inside the marriage market

Sir, -- K. Kannan's report, "Matrimonial ads point to changing times" (The Hindu, September 27) makes interesting reading. We are informed that a survey carried out by a premier Delhi-based consultancy firm indicates a sea change in marriage patterns across India. According to this analysis, there is a noticeable shift in focus from physical attributes of the bride and economic assets of the bridegroom to the intellectual and economic profile of the bride and personality-related attributes and career prospects of the bridegroom.

To cross-check the validity of this analysis, I ventured to scrutinise a sample of matrimonial ads which appeared in our leading newspapers this past Sunday. I found that in the "Wanted Brides" column, every second ad invited alliance from an "extremely beautiful" (or "fair", "attractive", "good-looking") girl with a request to send the bio-data along with a recent photograph. So physical attributes continue to be vital in the marriage market.

According to the consultancy firm's analysis quoted in K. Kannan's report, men in the 1990s were required to be "teetotallers" and "broad-minded". I find from the current ads that women are required to be "good-natured", "cultured" or "liberal-minded" with a sense of humour thrown in.

Many of the ads highlight "No dowry". In Delhi-Noida, some bridegrooms who claimed dowry have landed up in jail. This has worked as a deterrent. Some ads do demand "kundli"!

Matrimonial alliances are still governed by economic factors -- in some ads it is notified, "Earning six figures monthly". The "marriage market", where the "boy" is buyer and the "girl" a commodity, is sorely in need of market reforms!

Onkar Chopra,

Flat-114 A, Block-C2B,

Janakpuri,

New Delhi - 110 058.

No phone and no refund

Sir, -- I am a serving Army officer presently posted at Roorkee. I applied to the Commercial Officer, BSNL, Roorkee, for a landline telephone connection vide my application (Registration No. 898898) on January 15, 2004, for which purpose a sum of Rs. 2,000 was deposited as security (Cash Receipt No. 42 dated 19-1-2004). However, connection was not released despite frequent visits to the BSNL office. Ultimately I had to apply for refund of the security amount vide my letter dated April 24. But the amount has not yet been refunded. I request the competent authority in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. to look into the reasons for denial of connection or at least for non-refund of the security amount.

Lt-Col N. R. Sharma,

Abhilekh Bengal Abhiyanta Samooh,

Bengal Engineer Group Records,

Roorkee - 247 667.

Let's get on

with the job

Sir, -- "Please teach...." (Readers' Mail, September 27) by a student of B.A. Political Science III Year of Sri Aurobindo College, New Delhi, along with Jesus and Mary College English lecturer Harriet Raghunathan's letter, "No, Vice-Chancellor", published the same day on the manifold problems of the newly introduced internal assessment system represent the soft underbelly of Delhi University's present scenario. Neither teachers nor the administrators are blameless and it clearly is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Let us stop finger-pointing and get on with the job of teaching and administering in the interest of the students so that Delhi University's pristine glory is restored.

Vinod Chowdhury,

Head of the Department of Economics,

St. Stephen's College,

Delhi -- 110 007.

* * *

(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".)

B-1/5 Triveni Apartments,

B-3 Vasundhara Enclave,

Delhi-110 096.

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