YEH MERA INDIA

University PG Hostelites go without food

Raichur: As many as 130 students, including 10 girls, studying in Yeragera postgraduate centre of Gulbarga University, have been starving for two days mow. The reason: the university hostel mess suddenly shut down.

The students are finding it tough to appease their hunger as the college is situated around 20 km from Raichur in an isolated rural area. The students said that the contractor, to whom the hostel has been outsourced to, abruptly closed the kitchen when they questioned him on the poor quality of food served.

“The food offered to us was not good. We questioned the contractor, as we pay him a monthly bill of Rs. 1,300, apart from the one-time deposit of Rs. 2,500 and yearly hostel room rent of Rs. 4,500. He forced us to starve by closing the hostel kitchen just two days after he opened it,” said Pratap Kumar, a second-year M.Sc student of the Instrumentation Technology course. The mess was opened on October 8, though it was supposed to open on September 1.

When reporters visited the hostel, more than 80 students, including the 10 girls, whose homes were within Raichur taluk, had deserted the hostel, unable to bear the hunger. Adding fuel to the fire, the only borewell pumpset at the centre stopped working. The students have gone without bathing since then, as they want to save the water in the tank for drinking purposes.

The students had brought the issue to the notice of in-charge warden and assistant librarian G.S. Biradar and Special Officer of the PG centre P.Bhaskar.

“Except giving assurances, these officials did nothing. The contractor’s mobile phone is always switched off,” said the students.

When contacted, Mr. Bhaskar said the contractor was not heeding the authorities.

Deputy Commissioner of Raichur Sasikanth S. Senthil, who said he was unaware of the issue, added, “I will talk to the Vice-Chancellor of Gulbarga University and make alternative arrangements.”  

One toilet for 58,844 people

Lucknow, with a population  of nearly three million and the capital of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, does not have any public toilet for women and has a toilet for every  58,844 people, a Right to Information (RTI) application has revealed. 

No wonder then, says RTI activist Urvashi Sharma, the city has become an open toilet, with hundreds spotted on any given day relieving themselves out in the open, on busy thoroughfares and even in VIP colonies. In her questions sent to the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC), the activist had sought the number of public toilets within its limits. Admitting to an “acute shortage” of public toilets, LMC officials have also conceded that Lucknow has “no separate toilets for women.” This is amid growing concerns in the civil society about creating more toilets in the state, in absence of which many crimes against women like rape are taking place in the countryside. “I found this shocking as every day we hear that absence of public toilets is leading to spiraling crime,” Sharma told IANS while ruing the fact that if this was the situation in the state capital what it would be in small towns and villages?

Sharma also pointed out that issue was much graver as Lucknow is not only the state’s seat of power but also a tourist attraction and a cultural centre. 

Reacting sharply, social activist Umra Warsi said the RTI revelation were shocking and urged the state government to sit up and take note. 

“It is a shame that even after so many years of independence, successive governments have failed to provide such a basic need in the capital of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous and politically significant state,” she noted.

“I am amazed that a chief minister (Akhilesh Yadav) who zips through the city’s streets and roads every now and  then has not even thought of something as important as this,” Madonna Xavier, a teacher with a local college in Indiranagar, said. More shocking, she added, was the fact that the state had a women chief minister a few years back.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and city mayor Dinesh Sharma said the facts were misplaced. 

When confronted with the facts given by the city’s medical health official, Sharma said that additional toilets had been made by other government agencies like SUDA and the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) and private NGOs, including Sulabh. 

Sharma admitted that there should be greater focus on the development of public utilities. 

“We have identified some places for modern toilets and they would be ready soon,” he said. 

Municipal officials, however, say “people travelling in cars and on two-wheelers do not use  public toilets and tend to use ones in malls, multiplexes.” 

So where is the need to build more toilets, especially for women?    

Insurance for grounded flights – An Air India business sense!

New Delhi- Is ruined-by-scams Air India starting at another big ticket irregularity in its face? AI pilots have sought an independent probe by CBI or CCV into the airline’s costly decision to insure six aircraft that have been out of service for three years.

The airline has forwarded the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association’s (ICPA, union of erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots) complaint to its finance department and is examining the same.

“Six Boeing 737 (freighter) aircraft are still being insured at $1 million each for more than years (the period for which they have been grounded). Even as recent as October1, 2014 we understand that the insurance of four of these aircraft stands renewed for another year at $50,000,” ICPA chief Shailendra Singh’s  letter to the airline management and aviation ministry sent last week says.

The pilots’ union has also expressed concern at a sharp drop in the insured value of these aircraft. “It is baffling that the management is maintaining these aircraft in its fleet and paying hefty insurance premia every year to keep them insured… There is a prima facie loss of crores,” the letter says.

These six aircraft were nearing the end of their life as passenger planes were converted to cargo aircraft at a substantial expense about seven to eight years back. A private courier company was to operate these aircrafts which it did from May, 2007, till the contract was abruptly terminated in March, 2009. “The parties (AI and the private company) were locked in arbitration and AI has just suffered an adverse award, facing a liability of Rs 26.8 crore,” Shailendra Singh’s letter says.