MCD to install 2000 information kiosks before CWG

Planning to take out your family for a dinner or a movie, but worried about parking? All you worries will now take a backseat as the everything from list of restaurants, schools, shopping areas, parking lots in a particular locality will now be available at your doorstep.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has already installed 43 air-conditioned information kiosks in various colonies and are planning to install 2,000 such kiosks in colonies, market areas etc before the Commonwealth Games.

The 43 of them have been installed in areas like Paharganj, Lodhi Colony, R K Puram, Karol Bagh etc while another 100 would be installed in prominent areas in the city by month-end.

The kiosks are being set-up in a bid to provide doorstep facilities to the citizens of Delhi and for enhancing the appearance of Delhi ahead of the Commonwealth Games. The kiosks are being set up in selected areas which see high footfalls.

A top MCD official said that they are hoping to earn Rs.101 crore per annum from this project.

At present, services like list of hotels, restaurants, yellow pages, geographical maps and road maps of Delhi, airlines information, local bus and Metro information, ATM counters etc are available from these kiosks.

But slowly the MCD will also include options like public grievances, passport application status and drops boxes for bill payments.

The tender for installing these kiosks has been awarded to Bartronics India Ltd and IBM on build-operate-transfer basis for a period of nine years.

The kiosks will also provide directory of local housing society including details of all available services within the colony will also be provided at a click of a button. Eventually contact numbers of carpenters, plumbers functioning in an area will also be made available.

MCD-Ramjas college in land usage stand-off

The beautification of roads in North Delhi ahead of the Commonwealth Games has suffered some roadblocks with Ramjas College refusing to handover its land for the widening of the pavement on Sudhir Bose Marg, according to reports on Friday.

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According to sources the principal has written to the lieutenant-governor and informed him that the governing body was withdrawing its consent conveyed to the university on November 4 last year.

Apparently the college’s governing body had refused to surrender around 565 sq m of its land along Sudhir Bose Marg and another 300 sq m for road widening as there was pressure from the authorities of Delhi University.

Now Ramjas officials say that land, which belongs to the Ramjas Foundation, was acquired by the university for the beautification project of the MCD without following procedure.

Ramjas Principal Rajendra Prasad said that no land from other colleges located on that road was being taken over.

College officials also said that the land outside the building may disturb the students as classrooms will come near the road.

Ramjas Staff Council president Manoj Verma said that due to OBC reservations, the college was already falling short of space. The college is not in a position to give away even an single inch of land.

“Since the traffic will be one-way, the volume is also likely to increase and that will disturb the atmosphere. All our old trees along the college wall will also have to be axed,” he said.