Delhi Musings: Central Visa costs soar as Delhi University focuses on more research on the cow

It is not just the prices of fuel that keep shooting up under the current dispensation. The cost of construction of the new parliament building under the ill-timed Central Vista Project has gone up too.

This ‘crown jewel’...oops that may not be an appropriate expression here - so let’s settle for ‘flagship’. The budgeted cost of this flagship of the Central Vista Project was Rs. 977 crore and it will now escalate by another Rs. 282 crores. And no, it is not on account of any delays – the costs simply went up.

Only those Dilliwallahs who understood why petrol prices in Delhi touched Rs. 106.19 per litre last year are the ones who have comprehended this cost escalation without an iota of doubt. The rest didn’t fathom a thing then and nor do they interpret a thing now.

Hope folks at least comprehend that all the Central Vista Project and the subsequent cost escalations are funded by the national exchequer to which they contribute by way of taxes. While Dilliwallahs struggle to put the pieces of this jig-saw puzzle together they at least get this much that once completed, the Central Vista will be ‘gifted’ to them with a lot of pomp and show. And that they would be expected to express gratitude for a gift that they didn’t want in the first place and that it was funded from their own pocket plus that of their brethren elsewhere in the country.

Comprehension, genuinely, seems to be a difficult thing to do now-a-days. Take the case of our educationists. University professors are finding it difficult to understand the haste with which Delhi University is attempting to implement the new curriculum framework for undergraduate courses under the National Education Policy.

Several DU teachers are apprehensive on how they will prepare a new structure and syllabus for the 2022 academic year. Not all is well with Delhi University – a premier higher education institution that’s ranked at number six in the country by NIRF. Earlier we have had the issue of twelve DU colleges’ inability to pay their teaching and non-teaching staff because AK led Delhi Government didn’t transfer adequate funds to the colleges.

The issue still persists but that doesn’t stop our man AK from showcasing his party’s focus on education in election-bound states. Perhaps the happenings here in DU are best symbolised by the setting up of a gaushala, a cow shelter, within the campus of Hans Raj College and at a site that was ear-marked for women’s hostel. The Principal of this prestigious north campus college claims this to be a research centre. Comprehend whatever you want to.

Perhaps to make comprehension easy for Dilliwallahs, the Delhi Government announced a reduction of dry-days from 21 to just three. Our man AK’s Delhi Government, through an order of the Deputy Commissioner of Excise, announced that other than Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti there shall be no other dry day in 2022. For all you know this may be seen as one of the most citizen-friendly moves by AK a few decades hence.

Of course, like all government orders it also stated that ‘the Government may declare any other day in the year as Dry Day from time to time’. Dilliwallahs see this as compensation to the trouble they had to go through since October last year when it was so difficult to fetch the poison of their liking.

At the beginning of this phase of new excise regime for liquor - the existing stores were either empty or the brands these stores offered were the ones that most Dilliwallahs hadn’t heard of. Later, even these stores shut shop while the much-hyped new stores that were supposed to galvanise the buying experience were nowhere to be seen.

Finally, towards the end of 2021 we had the new stores getting functional. So, with this as the backdrop, Dilliwallahs grasp the act of reduction of dry days as AK’s ‘pashyataap’ or repentance. It is something that, in spirit, is akin to the withdrawal of farm laws by the elderly statesman residing on Lok Kalyan Marg. Now that wasn’t as difficult to comprehend. Or was it?

(The writer blogs at stateofdelhi.in)

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)