Beaurocratic apathy, corruption out to sour the dream of PM and CM
Pock marks on a beautified New Delhi’s face will remain, thanks to official apathy and lack of planning prompted by huge amounts of money being allegedly paid to those who ought to set things right.
While a facelift is being given to Rajiv Chowk, still popular as Connaught Place, at costs being paid by different departments of the government, undoubtedly public money, the entire length of Janpath remains covered by tourist taxi stands which have not only been there for years, but also mushroomed in numbers. The Tibetan market on Janpath was renovated to beautify this part of the area, but nobody dared touch the taxi stands who have parked several taxis on the footpath forcing the pedestrians on to the busy road. Over the years they have built up air conditioned offices right on the foot path which could not happen without the connivance of the officials of the New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC).
There are tourist taxi stands at the most unimaginable places like the one opposite the National Museum. This stand uses the parking meant for visitors as its own, forcing the visitors to stand or park on the roadside which is prohibited.
Yet another has parked buses on the main Rajendra Prasad Road, close to Shastri Bhawan housing several central government ministries. These taxi stands are “recognized by the Ministry of Tourism” say the signboards perched on the kiosk like structures.
One finds it strange that a citizen’s car is not even allowed to stop in these so called ‘VIP zones’, but taxi stands can do whatever they wish to.
The Delhi Traffic Police turns a blind eye to all that is happening right under their nose. Why ? This question remains unanswered. The Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) does not consider it important to answer such queries that is why he refused to see THE BLUE MOON even after three days of relentless efforts to get some answers from him.
The NDMC is silent on the issue. When contacted, the Director of Public Relations Department said, “I am only a postman. I have forwarded your queries to other departments and I will tell you when I get the answers to your questions.” Four days later, the ‘Postman’ was still helpless in getting the desired information on illegally parked buses in NDMC area and tourist taxi stands on foot paths. Surprising that in this era of computers, the ‘Postman’ was unable to provide information even in four days time. The civic body should have people with caliber in such key positions instead of having a ‘Postman’.
There are hundreds of tourist transport buses which are parked in different parts of the city in absence of a segregated parking area. The operators say they have no option, and accept off the record that they must pay bribes to let this system go on. “The money that we pay goes to the top,” alleged one prominent tourist transporter under condition of anonymity. What is this “top” nobody is willing to clarify.
There seems to be no doubt that the allegations of transporters are correct when they say that they must pay money under the table to have their vehicles parked.
“What will happen if you publish this report? They (the police) will take away our vehicles for a couple of days, we will pay up and everything is back to normal,” pointed out one transporter. According to him they have to keep the area ACP and traffic cops in good humour because the ACP has powers to seize any of these buses.
While this vicious circle goes on in absence of clear policies, the Finance and Urban Development Minister of Delhi Government, Dr. A. K. Walia cleared the air to some extent on the issue. Dr. Walia told THE BLUE MOON that the beautification drive under the Jawahar Lal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission envisages a 35 per cent grant from the central government, 15 per cent from Delhi Government and the rest 50 per cent from the local body, whether it is NDMC, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) or the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).
According to Dr. Walia, a number of parking sites were being developed for the ever increasing number of buses and other vehicles. A number of multi level parkings were also being developed, he said.
Promptly Mr. Walia also checked with some officials of NDMC if they had any plans for relocation of the tourist taxi stands and informed, “The NDMC has no plans so far for these tourist taxi stands.” On the issue of tourist buses being parked anywhere in the city and the constant complaints by the transport fraternity that they were not being heard, Dr. Walia said, “Tourist transporters have not approached me with this issue so far.”
Tourist Transporters cannot be blamed for the ever aggravating problem. They must also park their buses somewhere when they are not being used. After all they have spent huge amounts of money buying each Volvo bus for as much as Rs. 75 lakh.
While traffic police and local agencies are not interested in sorting the matter out, they are keeping the state and central government in dark about it. If a Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar has sorted the menace of trucks roaming the entire city, why can’t we have something similar to provide relief to transporters as well as the citizens who use the roads and footpaths ?
The bureaucrats, it appears, are out to sour the dream of the Delhi and central governments of making New Delhi a beautiful Capital for the Games.
Amit Mittal
RROW -- the abbreviated name of the much touted Royal Rajasthan on Wheels, claimed to be a specially designed luxury train, set out on its inaugural journey with much bureaucratic and political fanfare from the lesser known Safdarjung station in New Delhi on 11 January ---- albeit without an impressive number of tourists.
Made to accommodate 82 passengers in ‘luxuriously done’ coupes, the newly launched train, which has cost the public exchequer Rs.40 crore, carried only 52 passengers on its maiden journey, of which 29 were ‘handpicked media persons’ and the remaining 23 tourists. However, even this figure of 23 tourists seemed to be fudged with almost 15 Indian names not sounding at all like inbound tourists.
Only 8 passengers appeared to be genuine tourists from other countries.
At a time when the tourism industry is reeling under a wave of recession originating from the West and hotels are jostling to get what little numbers they can to raise their occupancies, the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation seems to have made a hasty decision to launch this train. The train which was supposed to have been launched in December last year was delayed to wait for the forming of a new government in the state.
MYOPIC PLANNING
All this while during the past one month, the RTDC was scheduling the inauguration to suit the politicians and bureaucrats and did not bother to increase the bookings on the train. At a time when even its precursor, the Palace on Wheels (POW) is unable to fill up the beds, the RTDC suddenly jumped for the inauguration without a pre-planned marketing of the new train
It is a known fact that inbound tourists from the West book their itineraries well in advance and the RTDC knows it from the experience of POW which they always claim to be full for couple of years to come. The marketing of the new RROW was pushed to the back seat resulting into minimal response.
The inauguration could have waited till a date when there is a sizeable number of tourists for the region. But the sudden decision to go ahead with the new train shows no wise planning. On the contrary it smells of a rat.
The RTDC claiming to invest Rs.27.5 crore in the project is satisfied with the structural part of the train and goes ahead to compare it with some international names. A look at the train, which was heavily garlanded on the inaugural day, shows what pathetic job has been done by the Integral Coach Factory. The finish on the exterior of the train is as rough and unskilled as can be. Poorly welded air conditioning exhausts on the roof of the coaches are a proof of unskilled workmanship. The colors on the coaches are a dirty ochre background with two dark brown lines at the footboard level. Where is the traditional Rajasthan painting ?
A traditional royal look on the exteriors is missing. Instead it wears a real dull look outside. On the other hand, the painted exterior of Palace on Wheels and the interiors are much more tastefully done and attractive.
The construction of coaches’ exterior is nowhere comparable to the Metro operating in Delhi. Do we call it a world class train ? Lets not discuss technical innovations in the coaches of this ‘royal train’ as there are none. The coaches are built on the same old fashioned chassis that has been used by the Indian Railways for decades. There is no talk about the improved suspensions and braking systems.
Forget deeper technical details, the coaches touted as ‘luxurious’ have the very heavy entrance doors with the antique style handle to open it. An attendant is really needed to open such a door.
While the coaches are named after various ‘Mahals’ of Rajasthan, there is nothing on board to carry the richness of a Mahal except for the name plates outsides. The interior has been done in a hopeless modern style and a futile effort made to make it look like royal Indian style has failed miserably. The Palace on Wheels looks far better in its interiors.
Our overseas tourists definitely would not spend a hefty amount on such blotched workmanship which is neither traditional nor modern. One fails to understand what is the RROW trying to sell to the tourists?
SECURITY
The tariff for an 8-day journey, of which two days are falsely shown as they are meant for late evening boarding and early morning check-out, is a substantial 800 US Dollars for a person per night on twin sharing basis on an all meal plan including transportation and other expenses at the stations where the train halts. This sums up to 7200 USD. The itinerary should be correctly sold for 8 nights and not days. Perhaps the RTDC has its novel way of day-based tariff instead of night, which is a common practice in hospitality industry world over.
With such rich clientele on the train, extra security should have been deployed, specially after last November’s attacks. It seems this aspect has been overlooked. There are not enough well armed personnel to ensure the safety of the guests. A spokesperson claimed that there are about six armed personnel of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) accompanying the train. The question left unanswered is – are the personnel enough to protect 82 passengers in 14 different coaches? And above all, how well armed are they?
UNHYGIENIC
Hygiene in the kitchen of the RROW also appears to have been thrown out of the window. Luxury hotels to which the train is being compared, or for that reason any standard hotel, would not allow unhygienic conditions in the kitchen. Pictures here show how the chef and the help in the kitchen use their bare hands to make sandwiches. Is the kitchen staff ill-trained or least bothered about basic hygiene for which the overseas tourist is very particular ?
The RTDC’s vision of market planning also seems to be blurred. They are undecided about the target clientele ? Whom are they trying to sell this train to ? Overseas or Indian, specifically Rajasthan tourists ? The impression comes from the ‘handpicked media persons’ traveling aboard the new train and that too with guests. The media persons put on the maiden run appeared to belong to groups which have affiliation to a certain political party. Is Rajasthan Tourism politicizing the industry? Or are there loyalists in the department controlling all day to day affairs from the political party that lost recent elections in the state?
Usually press previews are done before launches and are aimed at promoting a project. But in this case, it seems, when the RTDC failed to get buyers for the new train they hurriedly picked some television channels and a few local Rajasthan media persons to go with the inaugural run.
It is noteworthy that no foreign media was present at the flagging off function. The RTDC and Rajasthan Tourism forget that it is the foreign media through which they can widely promote such ventures. However, a spokesperson of the department claimed that foreign media had been invited.
Will some one advise the RTDC marketing department and Rajasthan Tourism that overseas tourists don’t look into Indian television programs, that too in Hindi. And the local media --- will they promote the train in Rajasthan ? Or will they satisfy the ego of the senior babus of the previous regime and politicians who wish to have their appearance on covers of all local media to prove their hard work ?
Whatever the case, money spent on promotion of tourism, both inbound and domestic is welcome, but squandering public money is shameful.Amit Mittal
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