The Hindu : New Delhi News : Inside Delhi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 29, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Inside Delhi

People sore

with NDMC

cIf the recent acts and orders of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) Chairperson, Sindhushree Khullar, are anything to go by, the civic body no longer is a "citizen-friendly" organisation.

The Chairperson has not only ordered that every visitor should obtain an entry pass before entering the NDMC headquarters, Palika Kendra, she has also made its spacious parking out-of-bounds for visitors. Ironically, the civic body has also restricted timings for citizens wanting to meet officials to discuss their civic problems.

All this began a couple of months ago when Ms. Khullar ordered that people will be allowed to meet officials only after 3 p.m. and no vehicles of visitors will be allowed inside the premises. "It seems that the Chairperson wants to help the parking contractors to earn more money. When the Palika Kendra has a huge parking space, including a multi-layer underground parking, what is the logic behind not allowing visitors to use that public place?" rued a visitor.

And this is not all as the latest order states that every visitor needs to make an entry pass before going to meet an official. Now at the entry, people are forced to wait for as long as 30 minutes to obtain a pass due to heavy rush. Ironically, those who want to go to the public library are also subjected to similar treatment.

"There were complaints about outsiders thronging our canteen, causing commotion in our lifts. So this step is aimed at restricting unwanted people from visiting the Palika Kendra," said the NDMC spokesperson, claiming that it was causing no problems to the public.

People are also sore over the shabby treatment of private security guards hired by the civic body. Ironically, there are two security agencies - the Central Reserve Police Force and NDMC's security staff - that are already deployed there, still the civic body has hired a third agency to "guard" against any external threat.

Last month, a private security guard misbehaved with a women journalist causing a flutter in the organisation. She even lodged a written complaint with the senior NDMC authorities, but still no action has been initiated on the issue. Scribes covering the civic body are planning to lodge their protest with the Centre and Delhi Government on the issue to show how media was being restricted from entering the civic body.

Marketing skill

Accustomed to the morning dose of news, this Delhiite was a little irritated this Sunday when many national dailies did not come out. On being informed that the vendor had decided to take a holi-day as most national dailies are not printed on the day of the festival of colours, this Delhiite decided to scour the marketplace in search of the dailies that were printed.

Disappointed with the marketplace near his residence, he landed up in front of Ambassador Hotel. Almost spotting a newspaper stand with several national dailies, he pointed to a particular national daily. The deal done, he picked up the paper and glanced through it before driving off.

And with a sense of shock, he realised that the paper was a day old. Calling the newspaper vendor, he pointed out the error with the hope that the paper would be replaced. But he was in for a shock as the vendor shot back: "You did not tell me that you wanted today's paper. You just asked for the paper. So I gave you what I had!"

And with marketing skills that would do an IIM-graduate proud, he added: "But now that you have read the paper, it has become old. Now it's your and you cannot return it.''

Young Innovator

Even Bill Gates was impressed with this young student from Delhi. And it is not hard to realise why. This East Delhi boy now studying at the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology in Patiala was selected for the prestigious Confederation of Indian Industry (Department of Science and Technology) Young Innovators Award for 2004 for his innovative algorithm titled "Non Redundant Data Comprehensive Technique''.

Anirudh Koul was presented the award this past month for his work on the magic square of the order of 10001 x 10001, which broke the previous world record of 3001 x 3001. The award is sponsored by the computer giant IBM. He has also developed another algorithm for generation of even ordered magic squares.

"These algorithms when put to use in a proper way could speed up Internet by three times. The data compression algorithm has the potential to challenge the existing data compression software if scaled up in a commercial way,'' explained the winner who is now back at his institution.

Nineteen-year-old Anirudh already has quite a few feathers in his cap. He has also been awarded "Innovator of the Year" award by the National Geographic Channel and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, for his innovation.-

By Sandeep Joshi, Anjali Dhal Samanta and Bindu Shajan Perappadan

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