Delhi needs civic lessons

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday called for a behavioural change among the Capital’s citizens ahead of the upcoming Commonwealth Games to be hosted by the city next year.

Mr. Chidambaram said that in the past many years and again as the Union Home Minister now he had not noticed any change in the behaviour of Delhiites.

“You cannot expect mega-city policing unless people also change their behaviour,” he said at a function organised in Sunlight Colony here to mark the opening of 22 newly-created police stations across the Capital.

It is not uncommon to see vehicles jumping red lights, having registration plates flouting norms. Also you can easily find people crossing roads where they should not, people not using overhead walk-paths or underground walk-paths.

Emphasising that the behaviour of the Capital’s citizens must change for the better as in barely twelve months from now the city would be hosting the Commonwealth Games, the Home Minister said Germany went through a process of behavioural change for over two years before the country was prepared for World Cup football. Similarly China launched a massive educational programme to bring about behavioural change among the people before the Beijing Olympics.

Mr. Chidambaram said those coming to Delhi from other places in the country must accept the discipline of living in a big city that was also the Capital. “We are not living in a countryside; we are not living in a pastoral area. We are living in a city. Therefore, we must behave as the citizens of a big city,” he asserted.

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said her government was taking initiatives to change the way people behaved.