In a case of complete negligence by the Government, Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College has alleged that despite the fact that the facilities constructed during the Commonwealth Games (CWG) on its campus have been lying unused for years, the college recently had to pay around Rs 30 lakh as its maintenance and electricity bill.
St Stephen’s College Principal Valson Thampu said he has made representations to Sports Ministry, CWG Organising Committee, etc, but received only around Rs 1.60 lakh from CWG Organising Committee which claimed that they owed only this much money.
Citing lack of completion certificates and necessary permissions from civic agencies, Thampu had refused to take over the construction earlier. He said that since the construction has no legal paperwork, he didn’t sign the MoU that other colleges signed to take back the property, and instead asked for some action to be taken. However neither has any action been taken nor has the building been handed over officially to St Stephen’s.
The sports facilities that came up during the Commonwealth Games-2010 are white elephants, while the college has been forced to pay through its nose. The college had to cough up hefty bills for electricity and water. Thampu said, “When the bills came, I contacted the concerned authorities but all in vain. They refused to pay the money. The electricity bill was Rs 11.36 lakh and the water bill was Rs 18 lakh. Since they were going to disconnect the entire college’s connection because of that, I had to pay them off.”
Reportedly, during the same time North Delhi Power ltd (NDPl) built an electricity substation on the premises and is still being used to supply power to other places but the college still has no ownership on it.
Sources have also revealed that the recent fee hike in St Stephen’s, which was criticised by many, was a result of this massive payment. “The money for these bills was taken out from the resident fund which is an accumulation of the fees that comes in from students and the hostel. However, since this sudden money drained out from that fund, a fee hike was necessary,” said a source, though an official confirmation on the matter is yet to come.
Four years back, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports had asked a few colleges to use their land for building facilities for the Commonwealth Games. Some of these colleges were Sri Ram College for Commerce (SRCC), Ramjas, Kirori Mal, Hindu and St Stephen’s. While sources have confirmed that other colleges signed an MoU and took the property back, Thampu refused to sign any document unless he was shown proper documents.
The building was constructed before CWG as a Rugby facility.
According to Thampu, Delhi University was assigned as the nodal agency for CWG and the university hired Engineer India limited to follow through with the construction. “Even during construction I kept asking authorities to give me the paperwork, but the paperwork was not in place. In November-December 2010, I was asked to take over the building officially, but I refused. There is probably no completion certificate because the building was constructed without obtaining the approval from North Delhi Municipal (NMC). If I take responsibility now, I will become an offender. It is unfortunate that colleges which allowed their lands to be used are suffering now. This is a classic case study of how every aspect of CWG was soaked in corruption. There should be a CBI enquiry into this,” said Thampu.
In fact the ownership of the land is actually unknown by civic agencies as the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) spokesperson YS Mann said, “We are not sure if the land is under the jurisdiction of the NMC. This will have to be checked. It could be owned by DDA but we are not sure of its ownership.”
Meanwhile, due to this property lying abandoned on the campus of St Stephen’s College, the college is not able to carry out its expansion, said sources. “The college hasn’t been able to add more courses or increase the strength of its students because there is no space for more students in the college. They want to expand but the NMC is not allowing them to do so as this properly is unregistered and not owned by them. Thus, this mess is becoming a big hindrance,” said the source.