Are they really getting it right?

This is a little about my visit to Savda Ghevra:

Savda Ghevra is an upcoming resettlement colony. It is believed that it is the Chief Minister’s baby (“Shiela Dixit ji ne Savdha Ghevra ko apni godh mein le liya hai”). It seems that it is an effort by the Government of Delhi and the MCD to make ALL efforts to make sure that all goes right with this resettlement colony – given the blunders that they have committed with regard to other resettlement colonies around Delhi. (the Government of Delhi and the MCD is aiming at making Delhi slum-free by the 2010 – the year of the Commonwealth Games).

The following is a small observation:

While I was in Savda Ghevra; I happened to have the “privilege” to visit the same place at which our Mayor Arti Mehra had just been about an hour back. (She was supposed to arrive at 11:00 am, and so were we, but I guess both ‘parties’ got late and when we got off the DTC bus just outside the Savda Ghevra JJ Resettlement colony at 11:30 am, Arti Mehra’s motorcade zoomed past us). She had come to lay the foundation stone for a community centre in G – Block. The plot of land, at present, lies empty. In the middle of the plot of land I saw two grey bricks that had been laid down by the ‘lotus-like’ hands of Arti Mehra (as the granite stone said). Just a few metres beyond the ‘auspicious’ bricks was a whole row of the ‘cubicles’ built by the resettled people (these thatched cubicles - made with sticks and old plastic sheets or bamboo - are used by women and girls so that they have some 'privacy' while having a bath - only one of the Community Toilet Complexes - CTCs - I visited has an arrangement to bathe - charging Rs. 2 for each bath and the remaining CTCs had bathing cubicles but NO water supply in them!). So, we are to think that our Mayor comes to lay the foundation stone for something as important as the community centre, and due to the poor maintenance of the CTCs, the cubicles that have been set up by the residents for the women folk to bathe (and maybe go to the toilet as well) are NOT NOTICED by this woman (our respected Mayor), nor by any of her ‘supporters’ (?)

There is NO water supply in people’s houses. Some residents have dug up and installed hand pumps but many of them are lying dry and rusted now, as whatever water they could have extracted from the ground, they have already extracted! The DJB tanker is their lifeline in every sense. The water that they fill from the DJB tanker has to used by them for everything - drinking, washing clothes, washing utensils, cooking, having a bath and going to the toilet (often they go to the open fields to go to the toilet, carrying water in jerry cans/bottles as the 'functional' toilets require them to pay for usage of the toilet).

That's it! (ARE THE AUTHORITIES REALLY GETTING IT RIGHT??)

Thanks Tvara for that 'special mention' - I am happy someone is reading what I am writing.. :)

ALL THE BEST to everyone!

-Shahana.