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Ramjas Road Menace: How Accessible are our Colleges?

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Months on, the road outside Ramjas College is yet to be fully constructed. The road poses a serious threat to differently-abled students.

Amidst the unpredictable Delhi monsoon, the road outside Ramjas College turns into a sludge of dirt, grime, and puddles. Delhi police barricades stand in strange places as students leap over puddles and potholes.

The road that was dug up in March, in hopes of creating an improved one, still remains unfinished.

It limits the movement of students, and other travellers towards Daulat Ram College and Vijay Nagar. The looming cloud of dust became a permanent resident of the college, as students and teachers with breathing issues struggled.

During the second phase of construction, the road right outside the main gate was dug up, a gaping pit, roughly 10 feet deep stared at the world as students were forced to make their way to the college through the sidewalks caked with mounds of dirt and rubble. A walk to the college became a hiking trip.

As the raging Delhi summer went by, the capricious monsoon arrived. The dust outside the college has settled to puddles and swamps. Delhi Police barricades stand at the opening of the road, sometimes, it turns into a parking spot.

The tarmac on the road is yet to be laid but bikes and scooters still manage to scoot past the barricades. On the days when it rains heavily, the road turns into a massive puddle, forcing students to make their way through the sludge.

Letters to authorities have remained unanswered. Udhav Sharma, a third-year student wrote to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), explaining his concerns over the damaged roads. However, the NDMC is yet to respond. “The Principal told me that the work will get over in a few days.” But that’s yet to come true. Another pit has been dug up towards the sports ground gate of the college.

The road is also a source of great discomfort, and a possible threat to differently-abled students, faculty members and visitors to the college. Ramjas College is yet to become fully disabled-friendly. “The college space is inaccessible for people like me, the staff are rude, the damaged road is the cherry on top. There’s always a major risk of getting injured,” said a master’s student who chose to be anonymous.

The college Principal and Vice Principal remained unavailable for comments.

 

 

Feature Image Credits: Jaishree Kumar for DU Beat

 

Jaishree Kumar

[email protected]

 

 

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Campus Central

Concern Over Unfinished, Dusty Road in Front of Ramjas College

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The construction work in front of Ramjas college, which started a month ago to install sewage lines has been creating problems for the daily commuters. The roads were demolished in order to build proper sewage lines, and were hastily and temporarily repaired recently.  

This temporary and haphazard work done by the authorities is creating problems for the students and teachers alike. All the people suffering from breathing problems such as asthma find it difficult to breathe in the air, which is rife with dust particles. It not only aggravates their breathing, but also adversely affects their health.
Archit Singh, a student from the college suffering from asthma said, “I live in the hostel and I fear to go out of the college because the air is full of dust particles.”
Both asthmatic students and professors faced problems as they were unable to attend lectures resulting in huge loss to academics.

The road is not well-developed and is causing problems for the daily commuters. Veethi Khare, first year student of the college says, “I come to college on foot and the damaged footpath is run all over by the vehicles. This makes it quite difficult for the pedestrians to walk as they have no space left.”

It is also a major concern for the disabled people who face problems in crossing the road.
A PwD student Sumer Ram said, “The authorities are not making the road due to which so many PwD students refrain from coming to college. Blind students face problems in crossing the road.”

A student of Ramjas College, Udbhav Sharma wrote an application to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and highlighted the major concerns pertaining to this issue. He said, “Ramjas is a big college of Delhi University and such broken condition of road does not reflect good on the ambience of the college itself.” He also laid emphasis on the problems that the freshers will face, if the road is not constructed well within time.

 

 

Priya Sharma, a first year history student said, “It’s a shame that the administration has not shown any concern towards this. Even around this time, I didn’t come across any signs of improvement. The road is still in the same old condition. Moreover everybody is supposed to go from the main gate, I mean it’d be nice if they can allow people to enter from the other gates.”

Faculty members of the college appealed to the concerned authorities to take the requisite action. Talking to DU Beat, Principal Manoj Khanna questioned the Delhi Jalboard’s inefficiencies in completing the task on time.

Feature Image Credits: Ramjas College on Instagram (@ramjascollege)

Antriksha Pathania
[email protected]

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Dead Human. Humane death?

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Death on road attracts only flies.

– Ishita Anand

A man, lying on the side of the road near a bus stop, sprawled on the pavement, his arms and legs in a weird position. It had rained some time before. And you can see dried drops of rain and mud on his face. He is lying so still that you can’t even make out whether or not he is breathing. All you can see is a boy, barely 19, probably dead, with flies all over him.

“He’s been lying like this for the last 3-4 hours!� says one man at the bus stop
“Did u call the police??� asked another man who had just got off his bus and had enquired about the boy.
“I don’t think anyone did� is the reply and the man walks off yet again, just like he had done before.
The other man was new to Delhi. He didn’t know what to do, how to contact the police. He stopped three girls on their way home from the college nearby.

“Beta, will you call the police? This man has been lying here for a long time and nobody has bothered to inform the police�

I turned around. I hadn’t noticed the boy. I looked at my friends unable to understand what was happening.

“Call the police??� I spluttered, “ WE? Call the police?�

I looked around at the 15 or so men sitting on the bus stop staring at us. I was hesitant, my friends clueless. Should we call? What if we get entangled in something? One of my friends just took out her cell phone and dialled. I stared at her.
“Are u sure?� was what I conveyed with my eyes.

She still dialled and told the police. They said they’d send someone to check. My other friend was getting psyched. I could see a series of emotions pass through their eyes – pity, helplessness, and a bit of shock at seeing a dead man.

I on the other hand felt nothing.
I stared back at the 15 people sitting on the bus stop. “What are you staring at?� I wanted to ask them but I didn’t put it into words. None of them had bothered to call the police. They just sat and wondered whether he was dead. A hundred people probably passed by him. And still didn’t bother to do anything about it.

“I think we should go.� My friend said, “ I’ve told the police. They should be here soon. And if they need us they have my number�

The truth was we couldn’t just stand there even a minute more. It made us want to look at the boy, hoping that maybe he’d show signs of life. But it was kind of evident that he was dead. Flies don’t scatter around a man sleeping. And the weird arrangement of his legs…
He could be drugged. But then he would’ve woken up when it rained. Several thoughts bounced in my brain. All I wanted to think of was getting back home. So I hired the next auto and bid goodbye to my friends, telling them to keep me informed if they heard anything from the police.
On my way back home I started thinking. Do we care about people enough to do something for a boy we don’t even know? It felt nice that we had done the right thing by calling the police. But why did I hesitate? Would everyone hesitate the way I did? I wanted to ask the next person I met,

“ What would you do? Would you call the police, or would you get on the next bus and then forget about it”

I guess the fact is that we’re all afraid. Afraid of getting unnecessarily involved. But was this unnecessary? A mother was waiting for her son somewhere, to return back home, probably getting worried. Was it unnecessary? That boy wasn’t just a body. Yet we hadn’t gone near him. Fearing what? That he would explode? People hadn’t called the police. They had just sat there and then got on the next bus, gone back home and forgotten about it. Hell, I hadn’t even noticed him before. WHY?

We’re taught all our life to be considerate to others. People talk about humanity and making the world a better place to live in. We talk about giving people opportunities. Of giving everyone an equal status. Of helping the aged and the sick. Of charity and goodness.
We just don’t think before supporting these causes. We think that we are sensitized towards the world today. It hurts to see people suffer therefore it’s time to do something about it. Yet, a young boy, probably dead. And no one did anything about it. And walked off without a trace of guilt. It seemed like the right thing to do. To walk off. How is it justified?

It makes me think…Are the to-dos and not-to-dos we are taught all our life actually feasible? They are �politically correct�. But are they the right thing to do? Frankly, I don’t know. But I do know that no matter how easy the decision to walk away was, it’s always doing something about it which is the right thing. It feels nice. At least in this case it was so.

If only people before us had realized that…

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