CAN SOMEONE EDUCATE ME?

Vijay K. Saluja

I am a citizen of India & a resident of Delhi , for the last more than 50 years. Over these fifty years, Delhi, a contained city with peaceful & congenial environs has grown into megapolis ,bursting with ever-growing population coming to this city from all corners of India. Most of the people who are now permanent inhabitants of the capital of India mostly came for work. Many came for education, business, medical treatment, entertainment,tourism also & discovered the city offered better quality of life vis a vis the places from where they came from!The towns & villages in which they lived were really backward vis a vis Delhi & when they found there were no hope of improvement in the basic necessities of life in their home-towns, they told their relatives & friends living there for generations to move to Delhi. So, what started as a trickle in sixties, to the capital of India turned into torrents in nineties!!

This resulted into mushrooming of jhuggi clusters esp near the construction sites, slums, unauthorized colonies & squatters-spots all over Delhi.

Besides, the so called authorized or approved colonies of the city,urban villages, also got affected by these migrants.

This resulted into more pressure on the existing basic services-water, drainage, sewerage, garbage management & infrastructure of all kinds.

Thus started the travails of the already PEACEFUL & LAW-ABIDING residents of Delhi!!

The city started expanding in almost unplanned manner in all directions!

I will not go into details in this article about the harrowing experiences which the citizens faced & are facing. But the fact is that the elected representatives & the authorities in powe, did not do enough to take stock & care of the multi-problems by horn. Most of them indulged in `SANU KEE` syndrome & only took stitching measures & not long term measures to develop the city in a caring & planned manner.

The result of that apathy is there for all to see?I will elaborate the same on another occasion.

But having said that, I felt things WILL change after Sunday the 8th Dec 2013, which I thought was an AWAKENED SUNDAY & I brought out my thoughts/views in another article under the caption `HISTORICAL SUNDAY.I was sure, the newly chosen representatives either of BJP or AAP will bring succor.