North Campus is digging mess

The telephone landline has been dead for almost two months. And Deepika Tandon has given up on trying to get it fixed.

The telephone landline has been dead for almost two months. And Deepika Tandon has given up on trying to get it fixed.

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“That’s not it. Internet connectivity has also been really bad for the last couple of months,” said Tandon, who teaches English at Miranda House and lives in the college faculty quarters.

Residents of Delhi University’s north campus seem to be sacrificing a lot more at the altar of Commonwealth Games than they had expected.

Pedestrian rights were the first casualty of the ongoing work for CWG. Now it's the telephone and Internet service.

For the last three months, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been trying to lay new drainage pipes in North Campus. This will be followed with renovation of the sidewalks and relaying of roads as part of its CWG work.

The digging work interferes with the underground MTNL cables. The degree of inconvenience varies across the campus and seems most acute in the faculty quarters of Miranda House.

“We have been in constant touch with MTNL, but they said they can’t do much unless the work finishes,” said Sharmila Purkayastha, a faculty member of Miranda House and resident of college quarters whose landline has been dead for weeks.

The problem finds a reflection across residential quarters in more colleges such as Shri Ram College of Commerce, Hansraj, St. Stephen's and Ramjas.

“The landline and Internet is the smallest of all our problems right now. At the time of admissions, it will be absolute mayhem on the campus roads,” said Professor N. Raghunathan of St. Stephen's College.

MCD authorities absolve themselves of all blame saying that they had informed MTNL well in advance.

“MTNL is duty bound to oversee that their cables are not damaged and technically its their duty to fix the problem. MCD provides them with any assistance they need,” said MCD spokesperson Deep Mathur.

“We take corrective action whenever we receive a complaint,” said AK Bhargav, chief general manager, MTNL.