On campus: Can't walk on road

NEW DELHI: Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was delivering a lecture on equitable growth, on the occasion of golden jubilee celebrations of the Institute of Economic Growth on Saturday morning, hundreds of university teachers and students were held up at several points between 8.30 am and 11.30 am.
Classes and internal exams went for a toss as they were not allowed to even walk on the roads or cross the streets on the campus for security reasons.The PM's visit also deprived around 150 rickshawallahs of their morning earnings of Rs 200-250 since they were not allowed to venture anywhere near the campus, beginning with the Metro station.
The campus was abuzz with activities since it is closing down for the winter vacations next Friday. Since the colleges will begin their semester exams immediately after they resume classes in January, most have been conducting class tests this week.
Namita Dogra, a second-year English (H) student at St Stephen's, recalled her ordeal, "I arrived at the Delhi Vishwavidyalya Metro station at 10.30 for attending my tutorial at 10.45. Since there were no rickshaws outside the station, I had to walk down to the arts faculty. There, I was stranded for more than an hour since no one was even allowed to cross the road. I missed my class test."
The other affected institutions included Delhi School of Economics, Hindu, Faculty of Management Studies, Kirori Mal College and Hansraj.
"I had to enter the college through the back gate since the cops didn't want us to take the usual route," complained Rudrasish Chakraborty, an English teacher in Kirori Mal College.
He added, "Many of our students got delayed by more than half an hour for their 10 am class. A girl who is not from this college was pushed into the college since nobody was allowed to walk on the road. She had no option but to wait till the PM left. The teaching fraternity in the university has lot of respect for PM but we would certainly not like to be harassed like this."
sonia.sarkar@timesgroup.com