It’s sprawling, un-walled yet gated on one side while the other side lies open and easy to trespassing. One wonders what is the grand use of the forlorn gate then on this side while the boundary wall, for the namesake, is too low and easily surmountable and the other end provides free access to all without discrimination? Clumps of shrubs randomly abound. Trees line up the boundaries in an unplanned manner and groups of drivers are found huddled together gambling in the scattered shades. Sometimes, they break into drunken brawls providing free-ka-entertainment to passers-by and visitors. At times, they take out their frustration of losing or being cheated in the game on one of the vehicles standing nearby. It’s their way of whiling time as the busy office hours rush by.
The drivers huddle under shady trees to while their time gambling
Rows and rows of cars parked in the muddy ground, scorched by the Capital’s summer, stand unguarded amidst heaps of rubbles and dirt. In some parts, the ground looks like the moon’s surface dotted by crater-like holes which brim up with water during the rainy season compelling the owners to push up their trousers knee high to wade through to their vehicles. You’d be lucky not to slip through the puddles and fall headlong fracturing a limb or two. Bricks and boulders lie cluttered here and there. The drivers’ expertise is reinforced by the way the vehicles are angled over these – also a redoubtable testimonial of the strength of the tyre muscles of various makes. An adman’s delight! The poor owner’s nightmare!
Sometimes the Parking lot appears like the moon’s surface dotted with craters
This unkempt land is the so-called parking lot allotted to the monumental SCOPE Complex – Standing Conference of Public Enterprises – an apex body of the Central Government Public Enterprises. It has also some State Enterprises, Banks and other Institutions as its Members. The building houses a number of CPSEs (Central Public Sector Enterprises), some of which lay claim to being Fortune 500 Companies. The vehicular traffic to and from SCOPE is regular and spills on the road between Jawaharlal Nehru (JLN) Stadium and the SCOPE Complex. This is the 7, Institutional Area, Lodhi Estate which also situates the CGO Complex and the CBI Headquarters. JLN being one of the seats of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2014, the area was purportedly “developed” and suitably “beautified” preceding the controversial CWG. Not far is also the foot bridge which was made, again in haste, to make commuting easier for the sportsmen and women from all the Commonwealth countries to and from the Stadium. However, in the hurry and scurry of the hasty makeover, fit for international standing, a properly tended parking lot was ‘’inadvertently” missed. Hence, the sorry plight which continues to be an eye sore for the visitors and a heart ache for those who commute daily to the Complex by their personal conveyance to earn their bread and butter.
Rubble heap everywhere
The car’s safety in every respect is circumspect
Car space allotted to SCOPE and surrounding other Office Buildings
The SDMC (South Delhi Municipal Corporation) has outsourced the “management” of the said parking lot to private party who makes the most of it, giving two hoots to courtesy, when it comes to extracting the parking fees from the outgoing cars (read owners). It’s Rs. 100/- for a day and Rs. 1200/- for a month for an untended piece of land for your car and on certain days you’d be just fortunate enough to even get that.
My driver, on two occasions, annoyed me to no end though his acts were well meant. On one instance he made me wait interminably while he laboriously manoeuvred a stranger’s car out of a veritable swamp. The owner, he told me later, was having problem in crossing over puddles to reach his vehicle because of a physical handicap. On another occasion, he proved his chivalry by helping a lady haul her car out of a mud pile. He said she was unable to pull out (blocking mine) as her tyres had got stuck in the mud slush. Both, as I said, were good deeds on his part but I only wish he would keep his mobile in those over-sized pockets when succumbing to such occasional bouts of social service so that I know where and why he is delayed in place of jumping to conclusion that he has played truant in the nick of time when I need him.
It is also, at these times, that I seriously wonder where the tax payers’ money goes. Also why the activity called “planning” is completely missing from the dictionary of those who are in charge of the Capital’s Administration? Of course, if the people in charge of Administration had paid attention to actual constructive work then who would have wasted time in bickering with the Centre? Point!
I also lament the lack of innovation in governance. Here is a substantial work force of drivers of various age groups sitting idle and inevitably employing their empty minds to devilry throughout the day who could have been otherwise creatively used as a collaborative element in building and maintaining a spacious parking place with proper amenities.
Lately, SCOPE has banished the drivers from occupying the basements where they would earlier sleep, chat or play to kill time. Now, bereft of their air-conditioned shelter, these men gallivant around like vagabonds. Apart from being a cool haven for them in the Capital’s blazing summer, the basement also provided a cosy nook during the Capital’s equally chilling winter and lashing downpours. The banishment must have been due to the misdeeds of a few miscreants that the genuine ones are made to suffer.
Talking of innovation, these potentially vibrant and virile army of strong and skilled men could have been meaningfully organized to help the Contractor or the MCD per se in beautifying the fallow land ( if they had given a thought to that) and converting it into a trendy and secured parking zone with segregated car space for regulars and visitors, respectively, sitting areas for drivers along with other amenities like privately owned and operated lavatories (to be used paying a nominal sum) and reasonably priced and affordable eateries for those who are not in a position to avail of luxurious and branded joints.
Drivers who are regulars, like mine, could have been tutored to keep a strict vigil on those who specialize in being health and hygiene hazards. Additional Security Staff could also have been deployed by SCOPE to ensure that the parking space is strictly used for what it is meant (i.e. parking) and not for doubling up as free space for poor men’s makeshift casinos.
However, these remain paper dreams till such time the Authorities get that inner urge to do what they are required to do and that is to govern with a vision in place of brick batting for and only for votes.
After a heavy downpour the parking place gets converted into swampy land
