{"id":13131,"date":"2009-12-12T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/farm-house-weddings\/"},"modified":"2023-10-21T10:54:34","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T05:24:34","slug":"farm-house-weddings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/farm-house-weddings\/","title":{"rendered":"FARM HOUSE WEDDINGS"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
Vijay K. Saluja<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The news, some months back, under the caption `MCD asks court to review ban on farmhouse weddings` in the Times of India, made me, then, write a `piece`, without much ado. The reason put forward by the MCD, for review was `purportedly `lack of infrastructure` & had further given reasons that even the master plan was deficient with regard to the provision for organizing social events & now the DDA was in the process of locating suitable places, for auction to private entrepreneurs to, develop facilities for social functions & marriages!<\/p>\n

As a city-manager, who has put in more than, thirty four years of service in a local- body of New Delhi, I feel, the plea put forward by MCD was specious. Even, majority of MCD`s own officials, might not go along with this argument. It is clearly a reflection of a mind-set, which has come to stay with most of the officials of local civic bodies of the country , in general & of Delhi, in particular !.<\/p>\n

Non- accountability of actions, deeds & words is the order of the day [nay, months & years!]. Non-stringent actions, on the various orders of the courts, by various local-bodies, over the years have made concerned officials, more complacent. Contempt of court orders also now don`t ruffle them a wee-bit?! `Chalta- Hai` attitude is the hall-mark of most of the civic-body officials!
Incase, they have any constraints, they must spell-out.
It is a part of their job.<\/p>\n

But, how their casual attitude is affecting the harried\/affected public, by these wedding tamashas , can be gauged from my own personal experiences. Having shifted [about three years back] to Vasant Kunj, in a flat, which faced farm-houses, , one found the only road, leading to our flat, cluttered with truck[s] carrying portable lights for the wedding procession[s], trucks carrying band-wallahs, ghori wallahs, crackers-teams, much before the time for barratis, to assemble & then start for the wedding \u2013venues, in the farms. A cavalcade of cars, bringing in guests, started around nine PM onwards, creating traffic jams of its own kind , right from the intersection of Andheriamorr-Mahipalpur road. The position got worsened, as & when, multi- weddings were solemnized, on the same night, in various farms located, in that part of Vasant Kunj. Reaching one` own flat, if one is returning to it , around nine PM, was no less tortuous than going around circles.<\/p>\n

As if, this was not enough, the assembly of barattis & , arrival of bride-groom & their start for the venue was heralded with big bangs of crackers & fire-works of all kinds! Imagine the plight of old persons[sick] living in their own homes in this area, also of the school-children who were to study for tests & go to schools in the morning, & ofcourse, the working people, who were to leave early in the morning, for their offices\/ schools.<\/p>\n

All sorts of people, descended in this residential area, with `total` mood to celebrate & have fun. If this is the mind-set, then, booze also did not lag behind! This exercise was, repeated for days together, when the wedding season was on.<\/p>\n

May we ask the key persons of Delhi Govt, MCD & DDA, where were they, when the master plan was being formulated. If , it had\/was not possible for them, to envisage about this important social-infrastructure, then the only inference, one can draw is, either they were apathetic , insensitive or simply lack vision. That is why , perhaps, even the directions of the hon`ble court are not being followed with due applicaton & concern?!<\/p>\n

Traffic mess & congestion on all the roads in the city which house farm houses & where marriages are soleminised, in particular, Express Link road off NH8, leading to Dwarka & also around Chhatarpur are very very common sights . The traffic police is also a harried lot, as they also express helplessness in coping with the generated traffic mess! Shortage of staff & less numbers of cranes are two of the many reasons cited by them for this state, as also reported on this Saturday[12th Dec] by a prominent daily.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What needs to be done? Putting of right type of persons with, attitude, commitment knowledge, sensitivity & vision, needs to be placed at key \u2013positions in local-bodies. Accountabilty has to be sine-qua-non. Otherwise, I am afraid, we are almost nearing `Social-Tsunami`.?!!<\/p>\n

We , all the stake holders, also, need to take up with the `powers- to- be` to act & act very fast, for the convenience & happiness of the citizens & in the interest of the city.<\/p>\n

Writer is Convenor – Social Outreach Programme Committee
IIT Delhi Alumni Association
& Senior Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, <\/strong><\/em>www.issin.org<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Source: <\/strong>Dwarka Parichay<\/strong><\/a> News & info Services
<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vijay K. Saluja The news, some months back, under the caption `MCD asks court to review ban on farmhouse weddings` in the Times of India, made me, then, write a `piece`, without much ado. The reason put forward by the MCD, for review was `purportedly `lack of infrastructure` & had further given reasons that even the master plan was deficient with regard to the provision for organizing social events & now the DDA was in the process of locating suitable places, for auction to private entrepreneurs to, develop facilities for social functions & marriages! As a city-manager, who has put <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,1],"tags":[1881,1879,16],"class_list":["post-13131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-update","tag-news-events-dwarka","tag-update","tag-vijay-k-saluja","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13131"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69307,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13131\/revisions\/69307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}